Conspiracy
by Dalena Saffi-Ann
Summary: "You see, the thing with verbal mind control is that it is so morbidly singular. The speaker tells you what you are to do, but there is little in between...You can fill in the gaps yourself." AKA, another clueless resident of NY who just happens to think too much about free will.
1. Control

You see, the thing with verbal mind control is that it is so morbidly singular. The speaker tells you what you are to do, but there is little in between. I treat Kilgrave the same way I treated my old math teacher. She would always tell me to sit down, shut up until I had completed my work. So when I had completed the meagre sheet, which I did expertly and at lightning speed, I made a show of yelling and walking around the room. Obviously, she would give me another set of instructions, but the damage was done. I had already done what she didn't want me to (but never told me not to) do.

Hope Shlottman didn't really get the idea, though. Neither did that dumb-ass support group that runs at that stupid-ass cafe. If you are clever, there are loopholes. It's not only his words in your mind, but your own. And if you are so centred on the perspective of the big bad wolf, you do not hear your own voice.

When Kilgrave first ordered me to kill a busker, in the middle of the street, the first thought that came to my mind was, "How?" I do not regret to say I spoke that aloud to him. He has called on me ever since for random things – maybe he just likes my originality. When he demands I make his coffee, I often force myself (no matter how much my senses protest) to ask him how he wants it. Or, when I don't ask him how he wants it, I put either too much milk or not enough sugar in. I also make myself one when I serve him his. It's a small defiance, but I'm getting there.

The attempt (Kilgrave told me to 'attempt' so I did nothing more than that) to kill Jessica Jones was incredibly successful. And not in the way you might think. I now report to her what he gets people to do, what he asks for and where he next moves. Kilgrave never tells me not to visit her when he tells me to leave. He also never tells me not to buy a pack of smokes out of the money I demand for the taxi fare. I have always been good with words, but I never knew my life would depend on it. Jones is now advertising the use of loopholes to her friends. I don't know how I found mine, but it involves focusing on what is said, and not coming to assumptions.

What everyone thinks, under control, is about what Kilgrave would want you to do. How he would have you complete and finish the job. The idea is to think about how you would do it. So I told Jessica that you do what he tells you, adding or negating as many things as you like. And just like that, verbal power is no more challenging than a singular politician, with no party or advocates. You can bend the rules, as long as his words are acted on in such a way that they can be translated to fit.

Her little Scooby/Buffy-gang (made up of herself, the Amazonian drunkard, a dude that has hair like the Weeknd, Patsy Walker and ex-military) hope to subdue Kilgrave to extract the confession from him. She doesn't want him dead, she wants him pained. And violated. And co-operative. Exactly how she was when he used her.

I'm slowly beginning to help Jessica understand the way he works daily to help her fight him. She now understands why she killed Riva, when he only implied it. She now understands why he'd only have to tell her to kiss him, and she'd strip. She understands why she'd blow him without instruction in bed, and maim anyone who he told to pinch. If she had met me sooner, maybe she would hate herself less.

Maybe Jessica wouldn't now be on a route to murdering him for all she did he made her think she had to do. And I don't want him dead, or ensnared – I want him free. And not free to wreak havoc, as most men of pain do. I want him free to be neutral, and indifferent. He harbours the love he has for Jones as bitterness, and the resentment for his family towards the human race. I don't want him cheerful, or do-good-ing. I need him less emotional.

And how do I know Kilgrave so well? It's called three bottles of spirits, shared between two hookers I was told to 'Jack the Ripper', a cute little button of a chef I picked up along the way to his, and a game of confessions on a rough evening.


	2. Kismet

The one day he asks me for a favour indecent, my mind flows. Translation. But I'm on overdrive. Jessica broke in, almost blew my cover today. I kicked her, pathetically in the shin, until she got the point. As I sit, moving chequers around an embossed board for a shaking-scared barista and a legs-splayed Kilgrave, he calls me over. I move to him, and hear that sleek "Closer," that follows.

When he gestures for me to sit beside him, I feign reluctance and nerves. Inside, I've never been so sure and so empowered. I sit, and he wraps and arm around my shoulders, slotting an effortlessly thin underside of his knee over the top of his thigh. His stylishly-clad foot rests on my own thigh, as he whispers in my ear, teeth nipping the lobe. "Kill him."

It was the first time I had ever let myself go. Head clear, the transmissions to my brain about this constellation-eyed man and him only, I felt myself fall so deep and so far it felt weightless. I pulled the Glock in the holster on my thigh and didn't even have to look down the sight – just flipped off the safety and shot in the barista's general direction before he had time to scream.

The sound hurt my ears, but I felt aroused and sexy and ecstatic at the same time. I'd shot a man without thinking because Kilgrave caught me off guard. The death may have been instantaneous, but it didn't matter anymore. Bullets don't care where they hit. Gagging, blood spraying from the neck onto a crisp white collar, I fix my eyes on where I had shot, and found that the bullet had tore the right side of his windpipe. Death was inevitable, yet the shaking urge of obeying the command did not settle until blood gurgled instead of sprayed, and the barista collapsed onto the floor.

I slide the Glock back into its holster, my skin burning where he, and Kilgrave, gaze. Inspecting my legs, bare thighs and covered breasts. The barista tries to catch my eyes, yet I do not feed him the sympathy. I am not a callous and cruel woman; but I'm as honest as life permits. I do not give false hope to the weak. I did the thing that I had ruled out for myself once more, and this was await orders. I look back at purple suit expectantly, as many of his other goons do.

He doesn't speak, because he knows he doesn't have to speak to hold me still. His head inches closer – we share breath by merely a centimetre. The air is hot and sticky – close and irrelevant. There isn't enough air in the room, and he's going to kiss me like that statement is true. His top lip finds mine, graces it. We're open-mouthed, and it's erotic. He keeps his eyes open, so I do too. He doesn't have to ask for anything, and Jessica is going to kill me when she finds out I voluntarily pressed my open mouth to his, and yielded under his callous lips.

I can feel the pride blazing off him, and I knew I should not be feeding his already dysfunctional moral compass. If he's still appealing to people, then he must be right. As Steve Rogers once misquoted a long lost love, in a fit of guilt, 'plant yourself like a tree, and when everybody else is telling you that you are wrong, believe you are right and stay with that belief. Don't compromise where you will not.' I'm sure he regrets it now, as death row criminals use it to justify murder. Kilgrave uses it, because he doesn't have to compromise. With all, it's his way or the highway.

And so what if the only reason I'm kissing him like he's the last man alive is because it's my petty control-freak way of doing something of my own volition? So what if when he sends me on errands, he doesn't specify that I have to return, but I always do? Without Kilgrave, my life would be my own. With him, I have to compromise, and it's the singularly, most dangerously arousing game I have ever played. Tonight, I could have the best sex I've ever had. Tomorrow, I could be sat on a kids park slide, removing the nails from my own thumbs if he so ordered it. The unpredictability takes me away from my laptop screen, and editor's deadlines, the daily grind and the pointless women on the metro chewing fat.

He's only kept me because of my knack for questioning orders, and my talent for shocking him with a result so unexpected that it worries him regular people may one day become immune to his control. If the day ever will come that I begin to resist his orders, he will want me obedient without them. Kilgrave is more intelligent than rumour suggests, and plans ahead. He will not dismiss me, for fear that I could fuck up all he is working for. I do not care that I'm a tactical pawn in his game, because he's only the most excitement I'm going to have for the next maximum of two years, until he begins to bore me and his patterns become repetitive.

I sink back onto the sofa, and put an arm to his shoulder, coaxing him atop me. His arm shoots to the arm of the couch, taught and long like the rest of him, his lips on mine, tongue working hotly against my own. I grip behind his shoulder like a lifeline, pulling his chest into me.

It's a win-win situation. He feels loved because he doesn't have to tell me to do it; I feel empowered because it is my choice to do so. That is what I keep telling myself as he places his gangly knees either side of me and works my mouth like clockwork. Kilgrave has never been a generous man – always a race to his own pleasure, as Jones had said when I asked her about the history she shared with him.

Although, he's taking his time here. Testing the waters, and how far I will go without being instructed. His free hand moves from my shoulder in a cautious trail to my breast, and when he gets no disapproval from me, he grips it enthusiastically. A mouth that moves from mine and to my neck no longer seems his, and I'm in some kind of oblivion which must be a form of heightened arousal.

I rode someone for the first time in my late teens, and even though it was the most empowering experience then, this trumps that. The taboo of the situation, combined with a very sexy and perverse man, who always has control which I have snatched from him, makes for an experience that is quite otherworldly. I am no longer an author on meagre royalties – I am a goddess who can submit themselves to the most callous of men, who no longer want to use me, but want and take what I give.

And I almost forgot my cue. He's sucking my pulse point, and I'm gasping in fevered passion, hands shaking as I reach in and grab the syringe from a hidden pocket. A vein on his neck is visible beneath the surface, and while I raise the tranquiliser discreetly, I plant a chaste kiss to the area. "Kiss me now, fuck me later." I whisper into his ear, and make sure that I press the plunger down until I no longer can when the sharp point is jammed in the area.

He told me not to harm him. One of the biggest defiance's of my lifetime was achieved through deceit and mistranslation. Harm, in my mind, means maim; grievously. Self-explanatory, really. I pull out the syringe, drop it to the floor, and watch as he struggles against me, trying to speak or surge up. In his drugged stupor, he only succeeds in rolling to the other seat, and slumping against it. Less work for me to do when he's passed out. I allow myself the joy of pressing a kiss to his lips, squeezing his waning erection, and jumping to stand before he lets go. Then, the world goes black for him and I call Jones.


	3. Shurikens

"Come in. He's all yours."

Jones enters elegantly through a skylight I opened onto the roof of the top floor, mid hanging up the call, superhero landing, and pulls a face at me that clearly suggests that she detested my methods. "Halfway through, I was going to abort and storm in. You killed a man, Hart." I cut her off with tutting.

"I didn't kill him, Jones. Or rather, I wouldn't have done had it been of my own accord."

Her frown deepens. "Neither would you have dry-fucked Kilgrave on a couch."

"Consensual, Jones. He didn't ask me to do anything except 'come closer' and 'kill him'." I mimic the British accent, see her face knit into confusion, shock and disgust.

"He raped me, Hart. He raped Hope, and god knows how many more women he's neglected!" she looks at me disbelievingly again. Jessica really isn't getting the point.

"Exactly. So think of what a shock it is when you've always had to compel yourself a date, that a woman would want you of her own volition." As the motive sank in, Jones ended up shaking her head and giving a dry, unattractive snort.

"You're a sick bastard, Hart. You both deserve each other, but at least you got the job done." Jessica steps carefully around the blood, and I make that same ineloquent snort when I think about how she probably doesn't even care if her combat boots redden around the heels. I allow her a moment of victory, acting out the scene as gracefully as she arrived in the room, and punching him as cruely as she'd imagined. She stares at him, bruised and helpless, before turning back to me.

"I work alone. No favours, no meet-up calls, no tag-team duo, no Batman and Robin." She nods as I do. I've understood the situation perfectly so far, and have no intention of disregarding it now. I don't want to follow the bickering meta-humans from cell to confession booth. I've had my fun, and now it's over. I can go back to writing books that have little chance of ever getting published, listening to sluts discuss their flavour of the week on the metro and five dollar coffee... Right? God, I hope not. "And by the way, Hart. That is a nasty purple hickey."

"Are you sure you don't want to indulge him again, Jones? The things he could do with that mou-" I duck to narrowly avoid a shuriken that smashes some kind of abstract art's picture frame, and imbeds itself in the wall. "Oooh, where'd you find that, Jonesy?"

"Hallway. Decoration." I have another one thrown that skims my ear, slices the shell with the effect of a paper-cut and jams into the wall ahead of me with strands of my hair still attached. I move to inspect them. Nice, but not authentic weapons. "This is all a game to you Hart, but it sure as hell isn't one to me." I turn to face her now, and try to keep my face as serious as hers. It's hard, considering that I just nearly single-handedly took down a very powerful man. And almost got laid out of it as well.

"That man, who I'm now going to have to constantly pump with sedatives for the next hour, is a murderer of many. All the lives that you have taken are on him. You're too exhilarated right now to care, but Hope isn't. You've observed trials before when you dabbled with law, you know they don't test a rapist's 'between the sheets' ability, Hart. Whatever you did to him to get him to me is over. Say bye to your price charming, and leave."

Half temped to dance around the room and sing a sleeping beauty theme, I resisted for the sake of the sharp, and incredibly dangerous, shurikens and walked over to her. "No hard feelings, Jones. But you've got the guy. I mean he's right..." I turn around and gesture to the empty couch. "There..." Oh bullocks.


	4. Sexts

He comes around, eventually. And I don't mean wakes up in our do-gooding arms, I mean comes around to me. When he woke up to a banging head, and myself and Jones bickering, he panic buttoned one of his goons in and set him on Jessica and myself. Thanks to her super-strength, we both escaped. Thanks to the hot, bulky ex-military in our way, Kilgrave also lugged his drugged ass to, presumably, another penthouse fortress in Manhattan.

Jones is pissed at me because I pushed the plunger down too hard, jamming it in the process and wasn't watching it to see that the sedative was mostly still in the vial. This doesn't stop her from winding me up about it frequently. "Hart, lost in the throes of passionate kissing, dirty grinding and gangly legs. Are you sure he didn't tell you to let yourself go?" Maybe she isn't so pissed at me because she can send Walker or Simpson or even use herself to achieve a similar outcome that we would have had the plan been successful. Shlottman still has time, therefore we can still attempt without trying too hard.

He immediately calls me when I'm leaving town afterwards. All I know is that I have to get the hell out of dodge, and away from him before he can make me eat my own cunt (eat, not _eat_ ) or something grotesquely sexual and painful. I pull over, and park somewhere with a pond in a drop-off area. My phone has rung twice, and I have five messages.

 _I'm hard just thinking about what you did._

 _Isn't that what you're supposed to say in these kind of conversations, or have I got it all wrong?_

 _I don't want to kill you, Hart. You're more use to me alive._

 _I know you're attracted to me. You can't stay away._

 _Meet me tomorrow at 4 outside that quaint little coffee shop you sneak off to when you meet Jones. I won't hurt you. Much._

I don't want to call him or even hear his voice. I'm a little scared, but there's something believable in the fact that I'm more use to him alive. Jones didn't tell me to bugger off after the whole ordeal, or reprimand me too angrily for screwing up her plan. Technically, I had to put all the effort into subduing him, therefore she isn't particularly annoyed that it really blew up in our faces.

I owe her no favours, and we both know that I'm only involved for my own selfish reasons, so I didn't have to do anything on her behalf. Still, she never said 'thanks for trying'. Or maybe this is how I justify screwing up in front of a hot girl. Or maybe this is how I convince myself that Kilgrave isn't going to tell me to fuck myself with a bible because I still have a professional relationship with Jones, therefore a flowing supply of her time, actions and words. Not to mention her pretty face. I pick up the phone again from the dash of my SLK Benz '04 and tap in a pin.

 _Boys like you are all talk and no action. As long as you buy me a drink._

The double entendre was there, and to type it almost made me giggle. Jones said he was always a man to make other people run his errands, and I was deeply disappointed to find that statement true. I turned on the key in the ignition, and was about to leave the drop off point and head back to my apartment, less intent on leaving, when my phone pinged again.

 _Touch the left side of your neck. Then tell me I'm no action._

I do more than that – I peer at it on the rear-view mirror, stretching on my toes so I could reach. My sex gives a pulse at the sight. Jones was right – it was a nasty purple hickey. A failed kidnapping later, and all I have to show for it is a love-bite the size of Texas in what looks like a very inconvenient place. I drop Jones a line.

 _Turns out I'm someone's flavour of the week. I think he wants to finish off what we started before he brutally murders me._

I don't have to wait long before I get a reply. God, if endangering our lives makes her reply to her texts on time, then maybe we should do it more often.

 _Pack and leave if you don't have a deathwish. If you do, make sure you're on the right side of the law before we put him behind bars._

I slip the phone back into a side pocket in the car door, and turn on the stereo. I keep driving home, listening to music years before my birth. I ignore the phone when it pings again until I get to my apartment, and only open the message when I'm led in the safety net of my bed, sipping a mocha.

 _I wasn't kidding when I said I was hard just thinking about what you did. What we did. Are you willing to meet me for completely indecent reasons tomorrow?_

I sigh, and yawn a little, debating a response.

 _Would it even matter if I was?_

I put my phone on charge, drain the mug and put everything down. I hit the pillows and I'm about to crash before my phone pings. I check it out of curiosity.

 _Yes._


	5. Mouth

I'm deliberately fifteen minutes late. Fashionably so, one might say. It was almost too much effort to not be there early, out of sick anticipation, and another dollop on top of that to make myself wait until four to leave. He's sitting outside, in his trademark purple suit, two of his suited goons accompanying him; one being the hot ex-military one from yesterday, sporting two dark bruises under the rim of his shades and his jaw. Jones got him good.

"You're late." He remarks when I come within earshot, like it isn't already completely obvious. He looks up at me from a paper he's probably not even reading, and his eyes are stony-cold. "I brought you a coffee. Black, no sugar. If it isn't how you take it, you will drink it anyway." I lock his gaze, and the urge to conform is nothing compared to what it usually is.

"Well, it's a relief that I have it no other way." The stone-cold victory in his eyes seems to shrivel away and die, and I have to will myself not to laugh. I'd bet any money that he's wishing he could top it up to the seam of the mug with milk and pile it with sugar. "How about, you get Dick and Roger to watch us from a distance, and give me some room to sit down?"

"Your stunt yesterday would tell me that I want nothing more than to have 'Dick' and 'Roger' at my side." He waves them away anyway, and they free up the two seats closest to him. I take the one furthest away, and sip a coffee that is thankfully still hot. The caffeine is nothing compared to the xanax I took this morning without provocation, but it satisfies still. "Now, Hart." His voice lowers, dangerously. Okay, I'm fucked. God bless whatever made me think that I'd get away with what I attempted – and failed - to do. "I want you to think very carefully about why fucking with me may be a bad idea. And whilst you're doing that, I'd also have you scratch your wrist until it bleeds."

He's not trying to cause me real pain, and with the flick of a newly polished nail, blood appears where I have shallowly torn the skin. Hey, I didn't even have time to think about whatever it was he asked me to consider. "Too easy, Kilgrave. Too easy." His face falls, and I really shouldn't be taunting him.

"Would you prefer it harder? Because I'm trying to think of ways I can make you hurt yourself without causing too much damage, without attracting attention to us, and without harming that pretty face of yours."

"You really think I'm pretty?" I murmur into my mug. I look at him from under my lashes, and I'm returned a sigh that sounds more like a huff. Of course I know I have the nicest natural tits for miles, and the sharpest, striking eyes in Hell's Kitchen. But sometimes a girl has to fish for compliments. Or re-direct a conversation.

"Yes, I do. But that's not why I called you here today."

"Really? I was promised indecency." I tried my best to look disappointed, but it was very, very hard to when I all but knew he'd be pulling at my bottom lip with his teeth and sinking his hand up my dress in the back of one of his goon–driven cars in under an hour.

"I could bend you over this shitty table and tease you until you begged for mercy twice right now, if I didn't have to get all of the boring, important stuff out of the way first." I bit the inside of my cheek, stifling whatever I would have said, or thought, or gasped as my clit throbbed. Kilgrave doesn't need mind control to shut me up. He says something lewd like that, in his dark, rumbling, low British accent and I can't focus on speech. "I'm quite the insatiable man, Hart. And you liked that, didn't you?" If it was a command, it didn't affect me. "Naughty girl. I can smell you from over here."

My hands were shaking just picking up the mug, and I took a swig to help me focus on something else. I'm so aroused it should be illegal. All I want is to have him right there and then, consequences be damned. And he knows this. Well, two can play this game. "Hurry up with whatever we have to first. Because I want to ride that big boy of yours until I can't even kneel to clean it off." A sharp intake of breath. A pause. And then he moves to adjust himself. One all. And Jones is going to knock me out for being a stupid bitch later when I stumble back to my apartment, completely fucked out. If I even make it back.

"Tell me how you managed to break my skin when I instructed you not to harm me only hours before." The subject changes, and I almost pout. I would have this game of dirty flirtation continue until we both couldn't think to speak. Either way, he's commanded me to tell him something I really don't want to, so I think about my words to try and make them as vague as possible.

"I changed my definition of 'harm' from any form of pain and upset to moderate-stroke-grievous bodily mutilation." His eyes widen, and then frown again. He's trying to put two and two together, but obviously he's too fixated on the power of his own ability to be able to see fault in it.

"And how does that work? Tell me." I bite my lip, thinking on how to word it before the metaphorical impulse timer wears out.

"Personal preference. I do what you say, but your words compromise with my thoughts. Sticking a needle into someone is medical, not harmful." His eyes widen in excitement, and maybe a little fear. Then he opens his mouth in a way that I know will test my ability.

"Slap the person sat behind you."

Already planning for something like this, I lean back and feign a yawn and a stretch, 'accidentally' hitting the person's shoulder blade behind me with an open palm. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" I turn around, and gasp like a professional actress. The rather drab middle-aged woman murmurs something passive, and I swing back around to face Kilgrave, keeping the smug smile off my face for now. He's not shocked. He's smug, and maybe a little awed at how that, for once in his life, one of his commands was not carried out in such a way that he expected it to be.

"Impressive. Another woman wouldn't think of a way around."

"Only because she thinks there is none. Like Hope Shlotmann." He looks up at me, bored already with what I have to say. Obviously, she wasn't a very memorable lay.

"I barely could remember her name if it wasn't for you and Jessica prattling on about it in self-righteous fits." I roll my eyes, swig my drink.

"I only remember it because of the news. And if I was self-righteous, I wouldn't be imagining this conversation over, and myself on my knees before you in the back of those blacked-out-window cars whilst you try and get the words out to instruct Dick and Roger's eyes on the road." That shut him up, but not for very long.

"I don't think I'm ready to leave yet." He sipped a frappichino, holding my gaze. He knows I want it, so he's going to try and make me beg. He's never had to campaign for something in so long, and I know he's only allowing me freedom of will and speech because I'm compliant, yet cynical which many of his women aren't. The moment I begin to disagree with him, he will force me to become his ever-serving bitch.

"Then if we're talking, tell me about Jones." His eyes quirked up at that, and I knew I'd hit a high note.

"What about the bitch?" He turned his eyes back to the mug, darted out a tongue to swirl some cream onto it like a dipper. I did my best to ignore the gesture that had been, undoubtedly, intentionally lewd. His words sound disinterested in her, yet we both know that really isn't the case.

"How did you fuck her? What sounds did she make and how much did she beg for it?" This shocks him, like I knew it would, and I have to be extra-careful to keep my voice down low so no one else hears. He's sweating, and his hands grip onto the edge of the table, digging in with strong, beautiful fingers that are giving me very rude thoughts at this moment. The attempt to steady his breathing is successful, but you can still tell that it was a very hard (punintentional) thing to control. "How did she..." I make sure I lean into his personal space, which would have been completely inappropriate if it was any other moment in time. "Taste?"

I smack my lips, and bring his coffee mug to my lips before he realises, lapping a glob cream from the top. I put it down, knowing that the drink will not be the sweet treat he has in mind anymore. "You and your filthy mouth are going to be the death of me, Miss Hart." Breathing heavy and cheeks red, Kilgrave seemed a lot more human when aroused than I ever thought he had potential to be. "Why do you want to know?"

"Had I succeeded in capturing you, I might be finding out at this moment in time."

"You will _not._ " He snarled, blissfully aware of the fact that the statement is completely true. I smiled beautifully. I guess I won't, especially now she knows me to be almost literally sleeping with the enemy. His face softens as he gets used to the idea, and however much he despises Jones being with anyone except him, he doesn't doubt its a hot image.

"I doubt you'd be opposed to it if you were involved." I gave him a snide wink, and saw him squirm a little in his seat. Oh, yes. Never likely to happen, but I'm enjoying fantasying about it almost as much as he is. "So tell me, sexy. How beautifully wanton was she?"


	6. Game

We're making out in the back of that blacked-out windowed car when I come up with an idea that makes my mind relate myself to Jones when she first met him. "Take me out for dinner."

Seatbelts forgotten, I'm pressed to the glass of the left hand side door, his hands curving up my ribcage to cup the underside of my breasts through my dress. His form is a huge disadvantage in this situation, but we make do. Panting into my mouth, he brings himself away for a second to look at me. And I'm so scared, that in this instant, he's going to judge me as non-compliant.

It worries me that not only am I concerned he's going to do something bad to me, but that I feel I have disappointed him. A want to be compliant without being asked for this whole escapade is not a good thing. I shouldn't feel like impressing him, and yet I do. I'm never going to be able to compete with his feelings for Jones, but it sure as hell won't stop me trying. I'm jealous, not because she's his first choice, but for the sake that I'm second. How fucking cute.

"Another night, Hart." He says, in his tone that as dismissive as her. In this moment, I completely ignore the fact that he's said that he's said it will be another night, and focus on instead how much I want to kiss Jones. I wonder if being with them both intimately will feel like having an affair with both the wife and the husband of a dysfunctional, long-time-wed couple one after another.

In a domesticated life, I would meet him before he went out for the night with his co-workers and colleagues; fuck him quick and dirty in a car somewhere secretive – maybe the coast? Afterwards, maybe after drinking alone and pining over being someone's dirty little secret, I would go to her, and we'd make passionate, soft love the way women do, all slow and romanticised in their bed. I'd have left both lives behind before he returns; neither having a clue the other had committed adultery.

Unfortunately, that picturesque and completely nauseating fantasy will never be, as I'm pretty damn sure that – even if they did get married – Jones would sooner be planning how to escape his grasp than sleep with me on the quiet. "What's your first name, Hart? I just found out I hadn't asked." His hands have left my breast, and I must have zoned out in thought before he could get through to me.

"Jane." I was distracted, yet again, so obeying the command was the only thing I did. I wasn't thinking enough to add a sassy twist at the end. Is this what it's like for everyone under his control? A consistent blandness to each and every action and word? Unless, of course, he tells you to be emotive.

"Well, Jane Hart... I have just the thing for you." He leans back, extending a limp-wristed hand to help me up. He untangles his gangly knees from each side of my legs, and sits down in the middle inelegantly. "You're going to love it." Awh, seriously?! That is not on! Well, at least he hasn't begun 'it' yet.

"You don't have to make me love it, y'know." I say, the least bit irritated that I can only feel my own emotions in the background of love.

"Shush. Just put your knees either side of my legs and sit on my lap. There's a good girl." Men who've spoken to me like that have been yelled at so much that they've always ran off before the beating. He says it, and it's perfectly beautiful without being unnecessarily patronizing. I comply with the demand, and I have to admit it's more comfortable than our previous position. Then again, there's little desperation left to our actions, like we have all the time we need. His voice is so beautiful; I could bottle it and sell it for a hundred dollars a pop. He could talk trigonometry and I'd still be soaked.

His lips find mine again, his hands passionately on my back, supporting me – holding me into him. I reach my hands into his hair, pulling, tugging him to me. It's like that time on the sofa, but I'm less distracted by any form of mission. I'm on top, and I do love it. His stubble burns my cheeks. I love it. His hold on my back pulls me into his lap, and when I feel his erection I love it. "We're always home, my darling. From now on, I want you to do everything I say without question or your opinions unless I ask for them." Oh, that bastard. "I've enjoyed playing your game of reciprocity, but enough is enough."

Fuck him. No, not literally... But yes literally. And right now, I want to wriggle away not for the sake of getting the hell out of dodge, but for the sake of my own goddamn ego. Why did I even think I'd have a night of dedicated worship and control over the world's biggest control freak, other than myself, and get away with it? Who am I to think, just because I carry out his will in a way that's convenient for me, that I'd be able to evade his nature, and break a habit of a lifetime? Yeah, I've been a bit hopeful.

Either way, I'm going to love every second of what he's doing, but it will not be on my terms... I think that hurts my pride and collapses my safe-guard a lot more than I thought it would before I headed out to meet him. Fuck, I'm an overconfident idiot. I'm losing my favourite game, and he's winning his yet again.

"Don't look like that, Hart. If you hadn't pulled that stunt yesterday, you could have tied me up in industrial zip-ties, as long as you pleasured me." The image makes my body shudder against him, and the hand that curls back around to stroke my sex upwards through my dress makes me loose balance and fall into his chest, my head bowing to his pectoral. I whine, grinding against the little friction I'm getting. He's right, I do love it.

I tug on his hair, and he grunts, kissing up my neck, moving his hand back to my tailbone. A little more pressure applied makes me arch my breasts into his chest, makes me straighten up to look at him in the eyes. I make a mewl of protest, seeking his lips again. "You're beautiful, Hart. And I haven't even told you to be as wanton as her yet."


	7. C1nt Block

He does take me to that secondary fortress of his, and it's not dissimilar from the first one. The rooms are simplistic and modern, a basic structure of whites, blacks, reds and greys. I know what you're thinking – since when did I have time to look? Was something else not at the height of my focus? On the contrary, it really wasn't. I got out of the car, sated and satisfied with him following me. A garage in the basement, as it were.

A lesser man wouldn't have waited, but he's really not as selfish and callous as Jones said he was. I mean, he waited throughout their meal with those dark eyes and amazing legs staring him in the face, am I right? I wouldn't have even bothered taking her out. For those of you that don't understand me when I'm not blunt, I mean I'd be eating her up on my kitchen table until we both actually had to eat food.

"I want you to go and have a look-around, Hart." He said to me coolly, but looking everything of the contrary. He was flushed - quite the shocker considering how much blood was to his groin from where he still denied himself orgasm – and the first few buttons of his shirt were ripped open in my previous desperation. I'd left teeth-marks in his neck from where I'd came 'harder than I have in my life' I quote (and boy, was it), and his mouth was kiss-bruised (my fault again).

I thought I would hate the mind control in metaphorical bed, but no kidding it can take you to new heights of pleasure. That's probably why Jones hates him so much. When he fucked her, she can probably still feel the experience branded into her, and no matter how advanced Cage is, he won't beat it. God, if a man I loathed did that to me, I wouldn't know who to kill.

"I'll be waiting for you in my room." I walk up the stairs ahead of him, and take a left down the corridor. He takes a right to another set of stairs, which I hope I shall be walking in a minute. I reach into my bra and pull out the foiled pills. I pop another two xanax. He can always tell me to feel high, but I don't want to leave it to chance. The first room I walk into is a restroom (boring), the second a sitting room with a glass window so large it may as well be a wall facing out onto the street outside. Someone has no concern for privacy. The third down the hall is a black-and-white guest room.

I depart up the stairs again when there is no more to explore. I'm fuzzy around the edges, and I want nothing more than to climb into an expensive bed in the rooftop suite, and strip off my panties that are already drying stiff and tacky beneath my dress. I zoom through the rest of the rooms, taking a pull from a bottle of vodka that seems to be a disassembled Molotov cocktail on a sleek breakfast bar in an open-plan secondary sitting-dining room kitchen before heading up the last flight.

The hallway is basically non-existent on the final floor, but there's a mirror and a small shelf below it before a single door straight ahead. I study my reflection, and yet I seem so distant and otherworldly that I cannot make sense of my exact features and the sharpness of my face. I'm too high to put on a decent performance, but that doesn't matter. I'll make him feel good because he will tell me what to do anyway.

I turn away from the fuzzy reflective me and open the final door in front of me, and the room is as textbook as they come. A bed too large to imply that he hadn't had four people in there at once, with indigo silken sheets and a velvet purple headboard with himself propped up in the middle, reading Red Dragon. The furniture is in the corners, with neatly arranged bookshelves, modern drawer chests and wardrobes. On either side of the room, there are large floor-to-ceiling windows that stretch out, and on the right side there is a door leading to a balcony. Even though we are only three stories up, it feels so high.

"If Jones saw you reading that, I don't think she'd blame you for getting your sadistic ideas." He looks up to see me, frowning, and lays the book spine-up to keep his page on a bedside locker.

"I thought I told you not to state your opinions." He looks me dead in the eyes, and maybe my comment had annoyed him a little. I highly doubt it.

"It wasn't my opinion." I walk over to him, standing at the foot of the bed, and unzip my dress at the back, letting the spaghetti straps fall from my shoulders and allowing the garment to crumple at my feet. I toe off the slip-on heels I'd been wearing, and walk over to the side he is closest to.

He's fully dressed, and it becomes less of a disappointment to me when I realise it will be more things to tear off him. Kilgrave observes me with those constellation hazel eyes, and I don't get lost in them. Whoever makes the biggest dick, or dictator, in the history of the universe attractive, and – from the grope of things - well-endowed? He's looking at me like he wants to eat me, and yeah I'm totally okay with that. Well, maybe not so much when I think about his reading choice, but that's not the point. The point is that he's looking at me like he wants to set my sensations on fire, and devour every part of my body so that there's nothing that he hasn't laid claim to.

Does Jones know that look? Does Shlottman? Did they ever once, if only for a slip of the mind, appreciate it? "You've got a beautiful body, Hart." He says, extending a hand to cup my cotton-clad hipbone. To piss him off, I'd worn something deliberately neutral underneath – a cotton bra and panty set, black with white pinstripes and modest bows. No lace, no silk, no mesh and no stockings. "Although I would like to see you in something that accentuates it."

If he means it as a command, it doesn't compel me to anything. Anything he says he wants or likes doesn't have to be acted on. So many people who have come into contact with him forget that a shared opinion is not the same as an order. He strokes up the side of my stomach to dip his fingers under the underwire of my bra, barely caressing my skin there. The reaction from me is instantaneous, and he can tell. "Tell me why you want me."

I take a shaky breath. Why are we even still talking? "The power you have is extraordinary. How can nobody else but I see that it's overwhelmingly interesting and completely, amazingly irrational?" He frowns – maybe that wasn't the answer her was looking for. Well, I'm sorry if it was the wrong one, Kilgrave but it was the one I chose to give.

"Why do you want me sexually?" Even though I knew I didn't have to answer, I wanted to. Boy, I wanted to.

"I'm a thrill seeker. With all your power, you could bring me to new heights of experiences that just don't happen to authors with remarkable fantasies and mundane lives." I take another breath when he moves closer, his arm around my waist pulling me closer, my knees resting on the edge of the purple-sheeted mattress. "I want to hear everything you did with Jones. The toxicity in your relationship. The sex, the strength. The blood"

I gasp when his lips brush just below my navel. "I want you to make me feel like no-one ever has before." His tongue flicks just above. "Ah, I... I want the fear, the lack of control, the mutual submission to feeling that comes with it." His tongue stripes down over my navel, and down further until it's at the elastic rim of my panties. The throb from my sex quakes my entire body. "I feel empowered just knowing that you're looking at me, wanting me to pleasure you- Oh God!" My fingernails go to his shoulders as he licks my slit in a single upward motion through the cotton. My knees almost buckle.

"You taste like Pepsi-Cola, Hart." He says, laboured breath ghosting over me, and something registers in my mind from a while ago, a song I used to listen to and savour. About being second best, to her who tastes like Coca Cola. My mouth waters, at just thinking about how Jones tastes yet again, instead of a mournful sorrow that she was his first choice. It's wrong, so wrong that fucking him feels right. That being in league with such a villain is my penance for my deeds against my race. I have a lot more in common with Kilgrave than anyone would think, and right now the focus seems to be a mutual passion for Jones.

I should have worn lace, or silk, or mesh because I'd be feeling so much more than he was giving me right now. Maybe it's a punishment? Or would the amount of contact given through a skimpier undergarment pleasure me too much too soon, and miss out the slight contact, that is somehow even more arousing that the actual touch? The hand on my waist slips, and another one joins it on the opposite side of my hip. His fingers inch beneath the waistband of my panties, one from each side dipping between my thighs as far as they could reach and massaging the skin there. It seemed so far away from my clit, yet the pleasure felt as if he was rubbing me there in firm, hard circles.

What shocked me is that his technique earlier had been completely different – firm and unyielding, harsh and exactly how I liked it. My legs were threatening to give out for the gentle, almost non-existent touches. He retrieves his hands and brings them back to the edges of my underwear, and slips them slowly down my thighs. When I look down at him, his eyes are fixed on mine.

 _I know you want this._

 _Don't you want this?_

 _Look at me, Jane._

 _Look at me, Jessica._

 _I wish you were more like her._

 _I wish you weren't._

 _Feel me. Love it._

 _Love me._

 _Tell me you love me._

All the things he should say to me, and I know them looking into his eyes. He brings the only thing preventing me release down to my ankles and I step out of them, discarding them on a pristine grey-carpeted floor. I widen my stance just slightly, and his mouth goes to my clit. My hands go to his shoulders, steadying myself. My kneecaps vibrate with the strain of staying upright, but he doesn't care. If I can control myself, I will be rewarded. If I cannot, my punishment will be someone else controlling me.

My eyes roll back into my head, and there is no way I can describe the feeling. Bliss is an understatement, and the pleasure does not feel like floating or sinking slowly down into sunny skies. I buck into his mouth until he has to grip my waist and dig his nails in. It's a futile attempt, and the shock only arouses me more and makes me pant and moan. It wasn't a deterrent, more like a taunt. He gets off on my desperation, and doesn't really want to see this pathetically weak and lustful side of me wane.

He pulls away, and my fingers clutch at his hair, though not hard enough to burn, to encourage him back. He laughs shakily, mouth wet, and untangles himself with a lot more strength than I. "I'd like you to ride me, Hart." When he rotates his body slightly to lie his back on the made bed, on top of the pillows like some kind of aristocratic playboy, he drags me with him. I have the sense to fall into, presumably, his preferred position on top of him to land as elegantly as he would have dreamed.

Knees either side of his hips, cunt hovering over the tauter-than-taut purple suit bottoms; I lean down and devour his mouth as enthusiastically as he went down on me only minutes before. I taste myself, and wish it was her. "God, Jes-" He cuts off in a high cry against my lips, when my hips become more passionate over his. My wetness is soaking down, dampening his trousers, but I don't care.

"I dare you. Say it." Making short work of the button and zipper on his trousers with shaking fingers, I gently pull out what I've been waiting for this whole time. His length is impressive, girth average. He pants, jaw dropping as I work myself up over it, and hover with the tip resting against my sex. He doesn't dare buck his hips, although some part of me wants him to. I shake my hair out of its ponytail and unclip my bra, shrugging it off my shoulders, unleashing both my greatest assets to their full glory. "Call me her name."

His head flops back into the pillow, breathing as harsh as mine when the head breaches me. I watch him the entire time, resisting closing my eyes until the moment he reaches up to thumb my nipple and a name falls off his lips. "Oh, fuck, Jessica."

And then the window smashes.


	8. Thank You

Jones has been having an off day, or more like an off few days when she visits Trish. She explains what is bugging her, and Trish really doesn't understand what the hell is going on – because why would she – at the mention of Hart. Trish is only thankful, because instead of going to her stocked liquor cabinet and chugging whatever it is out the bottle; Jessica pours herself fingers that are down her throat faster than shots.

"She's not on drugs, is she? Are you sure she isn't being controlled as some kind of sick payback for whatever you did to him the other day?" The mention of him is ominous, and it sends a shiver down Jessica's spine

"Nope, and not a hundred percent, but I guess we'll find out soon enough." She checks the tracker on her phone, and sees that it's been at the same address for over ten minutes. "We don't even know if she's still alive," she whispers, and fights another weight on her conscience. It wasn't her that this probable death is weighing on, it was the silly girls own fault for tampering with things she had no clue about. Jessica could have stopped her from returning to him, but the whole act of taking away someone's free will makes her no better than him. Makes her weaker than Hart for never once thinking of a way out.

"Here's some money for the taxi. It's probably a trap, you know?" Jessica pulls a face of disgust. If Trish knew him, she wouldn't speculate about such ridiculous things. The thought of Trish ever knowing him makes her pour a few fingers more than she should.

"No, he'd turn her into another Hope Schlottman case to trap me inside my own guilt." She downs the contents of the glass, and pulls her jacket back on. "I'm still going, Trish."

"I'm not trying to stop you." Jessica takes the money on the table, and looks at her with a word she never says unless told to.

 _Didn't that feel amazing, Jessica?_

 _Thank me for making you feel like that._

She heads for the door before she thinks so much she pukes. His re-appearance has disturbed her so much even drinking doesn't tourniquet the stem of the memories. "Take care of yourself, Jessica." She turns around slowly towards Trish, her face probably looking drunker than is wise. This worrying thing is starting to become more patronizing than endearing. She loves Trish more than anyone else in the world, but Jessica isn't a woman attending an abuse survivor's support group. If she did that, she'd become a victim, not the seeker of redemption and bloodthirsty revenge.

"It's not only myself I need to take care of."


	9. Window

I clamber off Kilgrave as quick as I can protect my modesty from the unknown assailant. Seriously? Fucking seriously? I was about to have, presumably if he told me to, the best lay of my life... And as I turn around, in my desperation to pull a coverlet over the top of my naked form, I see Jones brushing the shards of glass off her jeans. He isn't making an attempt to cover himself, and lays down a lot more smugly than he actually should, dick still hard. Obviously. Her being all Wonder Woman must turn him on more than he'd care to admit.

"Jessica... Your timing is brilliant as always." His voice is wrecked, and I snigger to myself. Control freak. I don't look at her pleadingly, because she might interpret it as 'please save me' rather than 'please join in'. Her face distorts and grimaces at the sight of him. Come, Jessica, I do not say. We all know you're only repulsed because you convince yourself you are. "Care to join us?"

Jones decides to ignore his comment, although I know it'll be weighing on her mind later at how perverse he still is when she's all but forced him to acknowledge what he did to her was rape. "She's coming with me, Kilgrave. Pick up someone willing the normal way when you need some ass."

I frown, about to say something though momentarily forgetting not to voice my opinions. So it's literally like being unable? I've never tried to properly resist him until now and now I just want to so badly for the sake of breaking the bond. "Can I voice my opinions now?" I say, looking from him back to her. He catches my eyes momentarily, and there's a coldness in them that tells me to be truthful. Like I'd lie about the circumstances I was currently in bed with a mind-controller to get into a girl's pants. Well, now thinking about it, the offer tempts me.

"Yes." He says, and for one moment I realise just how fucking annoyed he must be. No, seriously. After all that, and the only contact he's had has been the grope at his clothed dick in the car, and what just happened now. I'd have been a better lay if you'd been more selfish... I almost say it, but don't. What the hell, I had an amazing time and if he can blame anyone, it's himself and Jones.

"Jones, I was about to have a very good time, and you just broke a damned window in some attempt to save someone who really doesn't want to be saved." I looked at her sympathetically, and she blanched. I couldn't be too harsh on her, especially how she'd been treated by him. I did care, about the way that he made her do it all, but I cared about my own emotions more. If a friend advised you against going out with a year-old-ex of theirs, just because it ended badly and she was jealous, does that mean you'd give up getting everything you want on a silver platter, including amazing sex and scenic accommodation?

It's not the same, and really I should have more empathy. But that's the thing. I don't understand how every fibre in her being was screaming at her to get out of there, unless she really is that much of a save-the-world before my own needs and wants kind of girl. Then again, if she's anything like me, or like him, it might just be the fact that we all disobey people for the sake of disobeying them. Even if she wasn't so much against the sex in reality, it would be the mere fact that she physically had no means of saying no that horrified her. It's not that you dislike what you're being made to do – it's that you're being made to do it with no choice in the matter. Not saying that she didn't dislike it, because not everyone finds the weird and wonderful sexy.

This is too much psychology. I am way too horny for this right now. "Hart, say yes if all that was true, and say no if it was not." On immediate thought, I say yes. I regret it when I see the despair in her eyes, the loss, and the smirk in his. "Tell Jessica the truth, that's a good girl. And have I told you, in any way, anything that would influence your decision to meet me and make love tonight?"

"Only that you weren't going to kill me, and earlier on in the car that I would love it, and that I would come harder than I had in my whole life." I break off in a blush. Fuck him. His expression falters at 'love it' and Jessica looks wary once again. She has an earbud in, and one more in a gloved hand pressed close to her ear unless he attempts to influence her in an unseemly matter. Clever girl. He looks smug again.

"The truth, once again, Hart. Be a good girl for me." Kilgrave is obviously going to amend the situation. "Did I make you do anything you didn't want to tonight?"

"To obey you without question or voice opinions unless you ask for them. I still have to obey you without question, yet I can voice my opinions."

"Is that all you aren't content with tonight, darling?"

"I'm discontent with the fact that you still haven't fucked me yet." I blurt, and Jessica is still there. She looks like she wants to gag. Kilgrave actually crosses his legs and pulls the thin coverlet over to his waist, looking behind me at, presumably, my naked back. I've covered my breasts by tucking the sheet under my armpits, and yet I feel miraculously naked in front of her. He touches me, just his palm at my naked back, and I lean into it. Jessica Jones is looking at me with disgust, but it doesn't matter. If we're playing really dirty, he can always tell her to fuck me. Or to sit there and watch while we resume, and he still calls out her name.

"Don't you think she's a little too truthful right now, Jessica? Maybe you should make a decision about whether you're joining us or leaving?"

Jones looks so betrayed, and I want to reach out to her and tell her I'm doing us both a favour, all three of us. But if I don't know the truth, then what on earth would my justification be? That I, an insignificant human, am trying to distract someone that will undoubtedly dismiss me in death, or in word, from someone who beats me in all things except hair and breasts? _Don't make this sound like you're doing the right thing, Jane... You don't care about doing the right thing; you only care about being a part of something bigger._

And talking of something bigger right now. Fucking hell, Kilgrave, just get on with it whether she's still watching or not! I've been waiting for this for a long time... Or, maybe not exactly this, but what the hell. I just want us both back where we were, or maybe with myself on the bottom, and I want it bad. Are you sure he didn't tell me to want him, or am I really that much of a sex-driven whore? I'm banking on the latter.

"If you kill her, it isn't my problem." Jones finishes, looking at us through drunken eyes. You can just tell when Jones is pissed – she has a sort of careless clumsiness to her features – a sort of grunge-punk attitude when she speaks to accentuate that clumsiness. "But if you do, I will find a way of hurting you." The 'if' sounded more 'when' than anything. Not that I cared.

When you think about how many fucking 'special' people there are in the world, human life becomes insignificant. The people out there unintentionally belittle those who need saving by being able to save them superhumanly, and vice versa for the 'bad guys'. We then become the little people, running around on a battlefield between the both of them, to be the collateral damage. To even be able to get up and take one of the sides as a little person is an achievement in itself, so maybe I am just a really sick fuck, or maybe I see the development of human life as a profit ready to be exploited. Why am I thinking this much? Does what I'm currently doing (aka dismissing the only woman that can save me from a bitchmale) need this much justification?

Jones leaves through the window, now an empty pane, shooting one last frown at us both. I half expect him to call Dick and Roger up to us to fix the mess of glass she has left, however he just grabs me and rolls me beneath him.


	10. Ginger

**(A/N: I haven't been as communicative as I should be throughout this story, so it's only fitting that my first note is a chapter is a little more explicit,and has a few more orders in than the others, but it is consensual. NSFW, if the previous chapters even were.)**

* * *

The line between doing what he tells me to do and doing something that I want to do grows thin between 9pm and 11pm. I'm not watching the time, just guessing by the light streaming through the corners of the smashed window that we (Dick and Roger) eventually boarded up. We've been for two rounds already, and Kilgrave is spewing some kind of justification story about his life. I haven't been asked to listen, or to even hold him, but I lay with my face in his chest, an arm around his side, breathing him in, barely paying attention. I wish I had a cigarette to calm my nerves, or if he at least did so I could feel it in the room. Although from what I've seen, Kilgrave hates smoking almost as much as he hates binge drinking.

"I bet you do it all the time – asking people what to do, as if it were a demand." He goes on, and I'm content with listening. "Well, who can blame them for not obeying, but even if it was something as simple as 'put the kettle on' or 'sit down', I don't even have that option of someone defying that." My buzz is starting to wear off, but I can't do much about it now. "Would you like some wine, Hart?" He's looking down at me with those eyes, at it may has well have been a demand as I nodded, eager and childlike. "All this time and I haven't offered you a drink..."

I reluctantly let him go, making sure to press my lips across his skin before he stands, whilst he orders someone – I don't recognize them – to go fix us a drink. I personally prefer cocktails and beer, but wine is great. I'm thirsty, and all that's been down my throat since that coffee... Well, I'd rather not say. I suddenly have a great urge to dress myself, but that isn't necessary. I'm sure most of the 'staff' has seen me naked anyway. I wonder when he'll dismiss me, and if I even know if I want to stay any longer. I feel like being here is permeating my privacy and the time I spend with myself. I want to be alone, but I also want to be alone here with him. He's boring me a little, and that was mind-blowing sex, but this feels too much like being prisoner for me to be comfortable.

He comes back to bed, and we resume our position. I wonder if he notices my lack of eagerness, and when or if he will tell me to continue my previous wanton behavior before we fucked. Or maybe we'll just keep on talking. It seems so domesticated for him, to be able to hold someone and talk after sex. Or maybe I'm just listening to him because nobody else will. Yeah, that's it. I sit up, Kilgrave with me. Purple sheets protect our modesty.

The boy I don't recognize brings us wine on a silver platter, with two glasses. His arms and hands are shaking, but he doesn't smash or spill anything. He lays the tray down on a bedside table and pours us two glasses, handing them to us in sync. Unfortunately, I don't drink in sync with him, rather down the glass and pass it back to the boy, who pours me another. Kilgrave only sighs. "You drink like her..."

"Sorry I disappoint." I look over my shoulder and after downing another glass. The taste is cool and spiced, of blackcurrants and ginger. I flash a grin from my wine-stained teeth and a wink. Even though my temperament has dulled, I still know and act like the last few hours haven't been anything of a disappointment. He knows this as well. I down the next glass, barely catching the drops that spill from the corners of my mouth. I'm not even trying for manners anymore, or maybe that's because he told me to tell the truth; therefore my body language and demeanour has also got to be candid. Well shit.

"She always used to drink herself into oblivion with me, and I wouldn't always stop her. To make love to her drunk was always so sweet and lucid – she was more malleable that way, believe it or not." And now listening to him doesn't sound like such a bad idea, because he's talking about _Jones_. "You didn't know her when she was with me, but I made her beautiful." He continues, and maybe just this once I can see his perspective. He would have made her lavish – materialistic, but angelic in every way, even when carrying out unmentionable deeds. "I took the attitude, and all the clumsiness out of her, and replaced it with grace and finery."

His head is tipped high, proud of the deed he has done. He swallows the rest of his wine, and I watch his bottom lip curl just slightly – a quirk of his – as he sets the glass down. I down another that is handed to me, in knowing that he doesn't want me to. All I can taste is the wine, and I'm awfully happy for the fuzziness around my edges that is newly forming. The alcohol blurs right and wrong, and I'm more thankful for that than anyone will ever know. If I had a clear definition of what they both were, I'm scared of what I'd do to us both right now, in this bed. I'm beyond caring about what he did to her, but I'm not beyond how he feels about it.

"And was she yours?" I ask, trying not to stammer. Fear doesn't become me, and neither does uncertainty. I let the emotions go, and give into the lack of sensation that comes with the combination of wearing-off prescription drugs and drink. Kilgrave fills his glass with the rest of the bottle, and lays mine down on the platter.

"For the fleeting time she was with me, yes." He dismisses the shaking boy with the empty bottle and when the door is closed, he turns, and faces me again. "What I'd do to have her with me now." If it's supposed to hurt, it doesn't. His eyes are solemn however, and maybe it's a case of not knowing what you had until it isn't there, or maybe it's what he thinks is love. "Lie back down, Jane." He says, setting a half-empty glass down behind him on the bedside table. I follow the command, making sure I have the will to do it so I'm not magnetized to the spot. I put my head on the bottom of the pillows, settling beneath his gaze. I'm eye-level with his navel, and I can tell the muscles in his torso are held taught in the position he is in.

My breasts are still beneath the coverlet, but even that re-assurance seems temporary. His eyes are on me like a hawks, and no matter how often he looks at me like that, I fear that's the one thing I will never tire of. "Overlap your wrists, and put them above your head. Keep them there until I say." And I do.

He pulls the sheet off us both with a lazy hand, and lowers his body to kiss between the bottom bones of my ribs. His knees dip the bed either side of my ankles, and I close my eyes. I know my arms will stay where they are, but I'm not worried - I needn't use them for anything. I no longer want to leave. I know what I want, and right now I want more copious amounts of the sensation he can only give me before I even step foot out of this room. My heart stays steady while his kisses linger at my stomach, although picks up when he cups the underside of one of my breasts with a thumb and forefinger. His hands are so large, and maybe I should have gotten over that the first time we fucked. "I'm not going to be as gentle with you this time around, Jane." Good. "You can take it."

"I can take it." I respond, and if I didn't think I could before, I know I can be as strong as her now.

"Keep your head clear, my sweet. I know you think too much. Just focus on me, and how this is making you feel." And so I find out I can't even think past his actions. My mind is clear, and for the first time I do have a taste of what it would be like for everyone else – a blank canvas, a dreamless sleep, of sorts. He works his tongue around my nipple, and I gasp. I'm so hypersensitive now I can't re-direct my mind. "Doesn't it feel amazing to live in the moment?"

"Yes..." I draw out the s, back arching into his mouth which is once again attached to my breast, eyes slitting closed. The hand on my breast moves and darts down to rub my between my folds – he's impressed with how wet I already am. He bites down, playfully, extracting a sharp whine from me. When he parts from my breast, he crawls up my body to kiss me harshly, unyielding. When he pulls away, I faintly taste blood in my mouth. But it doesn't matter, because not only can I take it, but it feels amazing. I buck into his hand, and his fingertips brush over my clit.

"Control, Jessica. You don't want to disappoint me." He calls me her name again, and I want to make him as proud as I can. I can be what he needs. He lifts his hands and mouth from me, and my whole body rocks forward, rooted only by my crossed wrists. I don't let myself beg or moan. "Now turn over, on all fours, and arch your back. I'm going to punish you for being so impatient."If I could have my inner monologue back, I don't even know what I'd be thinking right now. "You love it when I spank you."

And, oh yeah, maybe I do moan a little at that.


	11. Morning

The next afternoon, I wake up alone somewhere I don't recognise. Why would waking up alone be so significant? Oh, right. I'm in a luxurious bed, and a beautiful room. By looking out the floor-to-ceiling window, on my left, it's a penthouse suite. I sit upright, and there's nobody beside me. I'm naked, and maybe that's a big giveaway as to how much I drank last night. I can't remember any of it. Whoever I banged, they must have been rich as fuck, and I must have been so drunk/high that I can't remember a thing. Even now that the world is starting to become clearer.

I slip the covers off and sit upright, staggering over to a pedestal at the foot of the bed. There are clothes on it though they aren't what I wore out yesterday, or even mine. Well, they're probably intended for me anyway. It's funny that I can remember leaving the house yesterday at 4pm, but can't remember beyond that, or why I even went out. My phone and purse are laid on top, a strip of foiled Xanax, still containing two, beside them. I pop the two pills, and take them dry. There's an unopened bottle of wine, on the side behind me, which I find three seconds after in the process of looking for a mirror. There's a label attached, and I walk over to the bedside locker it is stood on to see if it's expensive, and out of curiosity to see who the gift may be for.

 _Until next time._

I pick it up and place it near my stuff. Even if it isn't for me, I'm walking away with it. Contino Roja. Exquisite. When I do locate the mirror – on the inside of a pair of black wardrobe doors, I stare at my bedraggled appearance. My hair is all out of shape, mussed by sleeping and other activities, my eyeliner smudged and my neck – oh god – bruised in multiple rings. I don't look at all unattractive, so I'd say I'd be fine going downstairs and finding whoever has left me in this state in just my underwear, and one of those lovely purple dress shirts left inside the wardrobe. Men's clothes. That's one clue right there as to the gender of my mystery fuck. Why am I disappointed?

In my groggy state, I look down my body and see the bruises on my thighs – scratches down them. They don't hurt – yet. I turn the lower half of myself around just slightly, so I can see the swell of my buttocks. Ouch. So much for sitting down and hitting the keys when I get home. Between my legs aches from what I'm guessing is overuse, and the joints in my wrists hurt like they've been in one position for too long. Holy hell, if this is the state my body is in then why can't I remember anything? Was I date-raped? Did I even give consent? Who did I sleep with last night, and what the hell was so important they had to scram?

Alright, first stage of recovery is stop looking at yourself and put some goddamn clothes on, Jane. I lift the purse and my phone off the pile, and put them both on the mussed-up purple-sheeted bed. I flip the phone on. Three messages, and the time is 3pm. Well then... Before opening them up, I pull on the purple lace panties on the pedestal and do the matching bra behind my back. The dress is an orchid spaghetti-strap knee-length, and I check the label. Ralph Lauren. As much as designer brands and posh booze arouse suspicion to anyone, I am keeping it. Even though purple isn't my best colour. But it's definitely his, or hers. All the clues point to 'his'. Shame.

I ignore the shoes, not giving under the pedestal a second glance, and sit on the mussed up bed to check the messages. Jonsey, 4am.

 _Are you home yet?_

Jessica Jones. Why did she message me, at the damn hour?! Did she put me up to this? Of course not, she's skint. Another at 5am.

 _I'll come back. And this time, I will drag you home and chain you to the radiator._

Oh. Well it sounds like she knows where I am. And she was here earlier. How do I even know that girl anyway? 11am.

 _I heard the news. Come find me, I'll help you remember before the 24hrs._

Well, thank god. Wait... if she was here before, and she can help me remember, did I...? Did we...? No... I'm almost saying that in disbelief right now, shaking my head instead of grabbing the wine and slipping on the only thing left of my clothes, the ankle boots. If she was involved in any way, god help me remember. I'd rather run round around Hell's Kitchen naked than forget the sight of her naked.

There's so many unanswered questions that I need answering. Who did I sleep with? Did they go and meet Jones after I zonked out? Was I drugged? How will she help me? And what the fuck did Jones mean by 'before the twenty-four hours'? I grab my purse-bag, and slip my phone into it. I take the bottle of wine, and give the room one last scan. Goodbye luxury. Wait... I'm pinching that purple dress shirt in the wardrobe.

When I've wrapped the bottle of wine in it, I make my way to the other side of the room. The door isn't locked. Why is that a surprise? I walk down a set of stairs, and surpass all the beautiful rooms that give me a sense of déjà-vu just looking into. No noise, no mess, no sign of anybody. Eerie serenity. The next set of stairs is at the opposite end of the hallway, and I find the rooms they lead to like I did the others – nothing except the furniture and decor. The front door is open when I try the handle, although one thing stops me. A letter, on a low shelf in the hallway.

 _Jane Hart._

It's addressed to me. I swipe it, and exit into the sunlight.


	12. Hopeless

**I wrote this over a course of three days. I've been on a week-long bender, and so... This probably doesn't even make sense, I'm pissed as a newt right now but wanted to upload anyway. Have at it :)**

On the way to Jones', a middle-aged man in a purple suit outside a coffee shop that seems faintly familiar gives me a filthy look. That explicitly says 'I know what you did last night'. Ha. I almost laugh to myself after flashing him my best 'fuck yourself, and stare all you like' smile. As if he could ever get his hands on this. Before the paranoia sets in, and I begin wondering about the potential that look had, I leave my mind alone. I board the metro, maybe glancing once or twice over my shoulder before I go into the underground to catch the man staring at my ass. The burn on the inside of my inner thighs prickles, and seems to burn a bit more when I'm swiping myself through the turnstiles and remember the dark stubble on the man's face.

And then I think nothing of it anymore and plug in a pair of earphones. When I get to Jones' basic NY grungy apartment, the door still boarded and flecks of glass on the floor outside, I don't even care for courtesy. She's expecting me; I have a right to barge in. She's sat at her desk, or more like slumped, because Jones never sits properly anymore. Or not that I knew her when she did. Back hunched over the second cheapest bottle of whiskey you can find at the corner store. I should know – the cheapest tastes like piss.

"I visited Hope earlier." She says nonchalantly, as I pull up a dining chair and sit opposite her. I drop my purse, and unwrap the bottle of wine from the shirt on the barely-professional desk. Oh yeah, Hope Schlottman. Isn't the only reason Jessica has an interest in the case because her acquaintance, a defence attorney, took it? Why are we so hung up on the girl anyway? I mean, she's never going to win, insisting that a man with mind-control powers told her to- oh. Something weird hit me, like a pang of stress headache. Jesus.

"Oh yeah?" I mutter. I reach a hand out for the bottle, and when she doesn't stop me, I take it. Maybe I should look sheepish. Did I bang an ex of hers or something? Is that why she called me over? I take a pull from the bottle – grimace at the taste. I'm a daydrinker, but not of spirits. And especially a daydrinker when she's looking at me like she's indifferent to my existence.

"Do you know what happened to her?"

"Yeah. Bitch was kidnapped by a man who coerced her into silence and the effects of that turned her mental and she killed her parents when they were re-united. The parents who hired you to locate and bring her home, which you nearly succeeded in doing." Jones' face twisted in distaste. Oh, well maybe I'm being too harsh and too blunt. Shouldn't have said bitch. Or maybe I should have said everything a bit more sympathetically. Or maybe I just shouldn't have said anything at all, and definitely not the last part.

"And do you remember that you slept with the man who kidnapped and coerced her last night?"

No, I don't. But I don't remember anything about last night, so it could have been anyone... Could have been anyone. "Bollocks, did I really?" I blurt before I can control my goddamn mouth. If it comes to a shocking realization, that I actually did, I'm going to need more of this. I take another pull from the bottle, and she gives me a huge glare, brows furrowed even further than possible. Jones doesn't share her booze under any circumstance, so she must be convinced she's correct, and knows what it will do to my almost non-existent conscience when she is.

I met Hope just the once, can't for the life of me figure out what the hell about. I'm guessing it was Jones' idea. She seemed more frustrated, and soulless than psychotic. Worn-down, and broken into something that can't be fixed by what she'd been through. Her body was a battleground, her eyes un-focusing and blank. Really, she didn't seem crazed. Just hopeless. It now seems entirely possible that Hope truly was helpless in someone's grasp, like she couldn't have disobeyed him even if she tried. Like Hope ran out of hope. I almost giggle at my own sick sadism.

"Whose dress are you wearing, Hart?"

"I don't know, it was left for me." A slight lie. I look at the fabric on my body – and thank fucking god she doesn't see the underwear. I remember that she hates the colour purple – but why the fuck does someone hate a colour?

"And the bottle?" She glances to the wine – I see a shudder run through her. "And the shirt?"

I gulp. Now guilty of, essentially, stealing from a one-night-stand who Jones thinks was Hope Schlottman's kidnapper, I honestly don't know what to say and how to make myself sound clever. "The bottle was left on the bedside locker, and the shirt in the wardrobe." If my mystery man is trusting enough to leave me alone in a lovely new house... Well, he shouldn't be so bloody trusting. "It's a nice shirt, and it's high quality booze."

After a long pause, she finally speaks. "You're sure you don't remember anything, huh?"

I shrug; look her dead in the eyes. "Should I?" my voice dips to a sultry tone – really, I can't help it. She rolls her eyes, and I can see her knuckles clench on the table. She takes another shot, and I can't tell if the alcohol makes her grimace, or if it's me. Was I that bad? Did she want him all to herself? Instead of pondering on it anymore, I open the bottle of wine and take a long pull from it.

"If you thought less about your sex drive and more about the right thing, I might actually find your company enjoyable, Hart."

"Yeah, whatever Jones. Talk to me when I'm not popping Xanax every second hour." I reach into my bag – hang on that reminds me – and my fingers grace something. The letter. "Mystery man also left this in plain sight." I pop it out onto the desktop and don't even check her reaction before rummaging again to try and find some kind of drug.

Jones pushes her chair out in some kind of fit, the noise actually making me look up, and stands abruptly. Her eyes are fuming. She takes more from the whiskey bottle than a man's recommended daily in a single pull, and her eyes look even drunker than I think I've ever seen them. "So he wants to be overdramatic." She takes the bottle out into the kitchen – damn I was hoping for some more spirits, although my vision is already blurry – not even bothering to finish her sentence. God, what is wrong with me.

My life is fucked; I don't have any reliable friends, the most amazing woman I have ever met hates me, I've missed my chapter deadline by half a day and there's so many things I'd rather be doing with my life than waiting on the next big thing to happen in Manhattan. Whoever this guy was, god, I'd spend the rest of my life with him if he could grant me at least half my wishes.

"He's only fucking with you to get at me."Jones says, and when she re-enters the room I know the look she's giving me all too well. Truth, and pity and remorse at the truth. She's special, she fucking knows she's special. She knows I'm nothing. It's painful. I cram the letter back into my bag, not even bothering to check it or open it. I'll read it when I understand more. I came here because I was intrigued, and now it's time for me to leave because I don't want to know anymore. I pull the shirt on over the dress, even though it's baking outside. It's a stolen comfort.

She looks at me, _looks_ and stares until she even gets bored of my appearance. I'm not a mutant, or even a human anymore. I'm just a creep. Jones looks down to check her phone – I finish off half the wine. I'm too drunk to even be safe on the subway, but that doesn't matter. My stomach growls – so that's why I got so pissed so fast. Either way, I'm going home and going to do some moping. And then I will figure out who buys me designer clothes, designer underwear, a bottle of pricey booze, and leaves me alone when I wake. Maybe I'll get rich from writing a book about it. Fuck all those I'm-screwing-an-Avenger-or-an-X-men wannabe sluts. I want to leave behind a real legacy.

I'm about to head off to the end of the hall elevator when I realise I'm drunk enough to try my luck. "Kiss me?"

"Go home, Hart. You're drunk."


	13. North

When I get home, I methodically purge my body of everything that has happened these few weeks. First off, I stick my fingers down my throat to take the poison out of my stomach, hunch over a toilet bowl gracelessly until I'm sure the booze has left my system, and there's no more nausea. Then, I shower – scrub the blood from under my shockingly sharp fingernails (this should worry me, but really doesn't; it's probably from scratching down someone's back anyway) and put the clothes that I don't own in an empty drawer afterwards.

I remove day-old makeup, and spend a while studying my cleansed appearance, drawing the lines on my face out with lotion and bringing my shoulders up to make my clavicle look more defined than it actually is. I'm radiant, glowing in fact. I put on a pair of clean slacks and a sports bra, and then go to the kitchen to prepare a chicken salad. Really, it feels classier than it actually is. I lay an artificial mood lighting candelabra on the table, and eat to a quiet selection of smooth jazz and blues.

At around 5:55pm after dinner – when I'm sat on a black leather couch in the sitting room debating that instead of cranberry juice, I have a single glass of wine to wash down the meal with, I begin to remember parts. And I don't mean parts of the night – I mean a man. The first thought that washes over me is of him, and the second is why shouldn't I be thinking about Kilgrave? He's the one, true purpose in my life right now. To impress, before my life goes to waste at his hand and I fall helplessly in line with the rest of the pale imitations of Jones.

 _Jones._ And now, all of a sudden, certain scenes of that hazy conversation earlier fall into place. Hope Schlottman. Mind-control. The shirt is his, and the clothes... He must've gotten someone to fetch them for me. Everything comes back all at once, and maybe it is a bit of a shock at first. Actually, a huge one. I slept with him, and I'm still alive. I had rough, passionate sex several times over, topped off with oral as many times as we could both keep going, with Kilgrave, and I loved it. And holy shit, that bastard would grin at me from outside that fucking cafe earlier, knowing about- No, keep it cool.

Needless to say, I am no longer feeling passivity and smooth jazz. Damn him, he would make me forget him just to be petty? I hate men. Either way, I take my cranapple into my room, feeling a sudden urge to stay sober, and pluck out the shirt. I bury my face in it, and to my luck it still smells like how I _remember_ him smelling. Expensive aftershave, acquired not brought, musk and sweat. I bring the letter out of my bag, and look at it as if it's a freak of nature. No, it literally is. If it's anything I have learnt about the true freaks of nature whilst I've been in their company, it's that they do not write letters.

Regardless, the lettering is hand-written, and so I'm guessing Kilgrave got Dick and Roger to scribe for him. I open it methodically, resisting the urge to tear at the envelope as I sit upon my bed. When I unfold the A4, I completely blanch. Well, that was unexpected. I was expecting a hand-written declaration of love... Or, something dismissing me, and telling me to run errands in knowing I will do whatever he wants without compelling me. But who the fuck is S.H.I.E.L.D? And what is an industrial spy-branded typed letter doing addressed to me in said beautiful-freak-of-nature's house? Uh-oh. I'm in trouble.

 _CONFIDENTIAL_

 _Addressed to Jane Hart_

 _This is a private matter, therefore we expect confidentiality. We know who you are, where you live and your contacts. Do not try and find us._

Well, a man that begins a letter with a threat is my kind of man... Or, woman.

 _S.H.I.E.L.D has reason to believe you have relations with an experimental mutation of a nature that is detrimental to society. An agent, currently tracking Kevin Thompson, otherwise known as Kilgrave, has expressed concern towards this relationship and advised you against making any further contact with this man, for the safety of yourself and your society. If you deter us from our position, we will have to count you as a low-threat hostile._

Well... I guess that's one bridge burnt. But seriously? Kevin? No wonder he ended up a sociopath, with a name like that. Goddamn, I can see how easy it is to become a bad guy. All you have to do is screw someone right in the middle of it all and bang... You're no longer trusted. I swear to god I need to see him now and tell him to be more careful. I mean, shit, I could show this to Jones and she could liaison with the insider and bring Kilgrave down in a non-fatal way with the evidence they both can collect.

The fuck am I saying? I don't want justice, I want mind-blowing sex. And lots of it. And I'm going to need to meet him again for that. Fuck S.H.I.E.L.D, whoever they are. The worse they can do to me... Kilgrave can do worse. I count the time once more, to check the effectiveness of Kilgrave's ability. Twelve hours. He woke me up at dawn and put thoughts into my head. Great. He's not as powerful as he thinks he is, which is bad news for us both. Good for Jones and the agent, but the actual fuck, I don't know which side to take. It's like I'm deliberately rebelling against the do-gooding side for the sake of not being righteous. Or, for the sake of good sex. I really am pathetic.

After thinking for a long time, led down on my bed playing a playlist of overdramatic dark slow-ish songs, I come to a decision. I'm going to leave it all behind, and change state. I've had my taste of excitement, and now I'm going to write a book, maybe turn it into a saga, about a dream man who is extremely dangerous, but whom I am _unconditionally_ and _irrevocably_ in love with... And then make up the rest about how we have a special powered child that I almost die birthing.

Oh shit. That's copyrighted. Ah well, I'm sure I'll think of something without ripping off Stephanie Meyer to fund my life. Or on the other hand, I could beg to stay with Kilgrave... And somehow offer him what he wants without Jones, so I live in the lap of luxury in return. Travelling wherever... The best food, the best alcohol. Five-star hotels, Europe and Africa... Yeah, yeah Hart, you can write that from a safe distance. As if it's a realistic fantasy anyway, because he will cast you aside more painfully than he did this afternoon and carry on his pursuit of Jones. As if life was ever fair for me anyway. I think too much, he even agreed.

 _Keep your head clear, my sweet_

 _Just focus on me and how this is making you feel._

Right now, horny, and very. I feel like crying. He's in my head – he's in my lungs. He's all I can see and all I can breathe. God, no wonder the people he has only once graced feel so damn affected. I can sympathise with Jones a bit more now, imagining what the aftermath must have been like for her. I can't see straight, I can't even think seriously. I need to get the fuck away, or choose a path that may as well be suicide. And accept that the path is, indeed, suicide, not romance and Rome and _Twilight_.

I begin looking at flights after another half-hour of contemplating. I have family all along the Atlantic coast, so it won't be hard finding somewhere with common ground. Somewhere far enough away from the madness here to rejuvenate my common sense. Somewhere far enough away to pretend that the last month hasn't happened, and that we can all feel safe at night because there's no power higher than the government, and no-one that could successfully oppose it.

Come on, Hart. Life, mundane as it is, or death, elaborate and exciting and completely new? God, I need a therapist. I'd ask Jones, but I know what she'd say. I'd message Kilgrave, but hearing his voice would fuck with my head in more ways than one. Jenny's away on business, and Nicole is hopeless. The rest of my friends are too immature to give me advice. Who to call? Mom. Call mom, and use a more realistic, romanticised metaphor for your life to help make a decision.

Or, get high.


	14. Sail

**(A/N: Apologies to all you people. I found myself prematurely back with DC to all the Suicide Squad hype, so updates may be few and far between. Either way, Conspiracy is drawing to a close soon, which I'm almost sad to say. I hope you enjoy, but yet again I found myself nearly rushing it)**

So I get high.

I do meet Nicole and a group, who're celebrating a birthday amongst them (I've only met the girl once – Cas, Kacey or something – but she drunkenly tells me to join them anyway) and they're doing lines of coke in a backroom of a sleazy, yet large and roomy, bar room venue the girls hired out for the evening. The lady in question – wearing a large thirty banner around her gaunt form – is doing body shots with a man I don't recognise, so I think best to save the pleasantries for later. I catch up with Nicole, standing smoking a cigarette out the backdoor, and find out she's on the phone to a local dealer. Result. I go halves on what she's buying, totalling thirty dollars.

My night is spent avoiding those who seem overly-touchy, and sitting in Nicole's circle, doing an occasional shot. I smoke my first joint in three months, then another. I snort a line when a girl in a blue dress tells me it's Diamond. The good stuff. I stay for an hour, take maybe three more shots and do another line before slurring to the birthday girl and stumbling out.

I haven't drug-binged like this for a long time. I barely remember my own address, and when I do I don't even want to go home anymore. Instead, I find that park with the book seller and the adjacent coffee shop. I sit on a bench, and all is peaceful except the others, like me, whacked up on spank, and the homeless. I think, because obviously thinking about my life situation with a clear head creates riddles, so why not do it on one loaded with drugs. I think about how I'm going to get out of this mess. And I'm trying to think, when some fucker stands right in front of me and grabs my arm. I'm so high I don't even realise he's there until I feel a solid grip crushing my wrist.

"You've got to come with me. He said I must find you and bring you to him."

"Leggo'm'me." I squirm, only he grabs tighter. I'm currently trying to fight him off, when something clicks in my brain. He said... oh god, am I really going to have to go to Kilgrave in this fucking state? At least I'm not so bad I'm covered in piss and vomit. I just still can feel the coke I rubbed into my gums fizzing away. I wait, slow down and begin walking with the guy. I've had this miraculous skill that when I'm drunk, or very high, my mind is very similar to what it is sober. Sure, there's the biological fuck-ups, like the loss of speech, staggered movements, and lowered inhibitions, but I still know who I am. "Stop. Look, leggo, just hold m' hand or something, and I will come wit' you."

The unnamed man, who I really hadn't focused on yet, looked at me wide-eyed under the rim of his baseball cap. "If you try and run, I will have to hurt you." His voice is stoic, controlled. He's repeating, like a parrot. It makes me ill to think that Kilgrave can scramble simple-minded brains so easily. God, nothing sobers you up like a goon dressed like a mini-mobster kidnapper pawing at you. I hold his wrist, letting my grip be firm yet not firm enough to be threatening as he leads me through the park and through a street up by the docks. It's a fair walk, but I can walk miles while tipsy, and in an amazing sensation we all called 'limbo' back in the day, brought on by the mixing of coke and kush, my legs feel like iron.

It's odd not talking, but it also feels kind of comforting too. The poor boy is only trying to get the job done, and not end up dead in the process. And I was half-temped to brutally kill him with the butterfly knife I keep stashed in my handbag in case of emergencies. I spend the walk appreciating the little life I have left... humming songs from the Wizard of Oz and such, wondering if baseball-cap who is dragging me up a small incline at this moment will protest. He takes me to the docks, and I can see a boat – a yacht that looks too sophisticated for this side of town – oared in at the jetty. So he's saying goodbye...

We get closer, and I can see him standing beside the docked boat, leaning on a waist-height pillar in a highly unflattering mauve sweater and indigo skinnies that... ooh, well. I couldn't say the same about the outline of his legs (and something I'm high enough to compliment) in those. I almost run up to him and hug him in an embrace idiotically, screaming 'Kevin' but I remember that he doesn't know I know his hidden name. As tempting as it sounds, I deny my mind. I'm standing maybe two meters away from him now, and he speaks to the man who I'm still holding onto. "Leave." And when I let go, he does.

"Miss Hart..."

"Kilgrave."

"You must be wondering why I had you escorted here, instead of just calling." And it sounds too innocent for what it was. Had I not been informed that the capped boy was taking me to someone who had told him he had to, I would have hurt the young one badly.

"Actually, I'm not. I'm wondering why I'm here – why I couldn't get high and forget you just for one night." I manage without slurring, and he looks slightly offended. And then cracks a smile.

"I made you forget me, but you didn't seem to take it so well." God, I kind of missed the pun. How much did I take again? "Anyway, I had to have you here, now, because I'm leaving for a short while. I will be back – for Jones of course - but I'm taking you with me this time."

And it sounded so assured, so certain that I was going. Like even if I wasn't ready to just drop everything a leave with this crazy man, he would make me anyway. Why would he want to take me on a cruise? Why leave with me and not make his end goal to re-claim his former lover? I'm nothing compared to her... Sure, I have the looks and the willpower, but I'm nothing. I'm everything he despises – I've just done a fuck-ton of drugs in some sleazy back-alley bar, and he wants me to leave for some luxury of a short break? With him?

He lifts up his shoulders and huffs a sigh, raising his hands in an exasperated gesture when I don't reply. "Look, I know you're confused and probably think I have an ulterior motive, but I don't. You're under no illusions, Jane, and haven't been ever, so I'm going to say this how it is. I am not wasting the rest of my debilitating life on a girl that doesn't know she loves me yet. I know that one day, she will run to me, because we're made for each other and she'll find out soon enough. But not now, my dear. It will take her time for her to accept me; begin to understand that our future relationship will not be built of control like it was last time."

Is he seriously saying he's giving up on her? I mean, for now, but that could be expansive. What if, on our travels, he meets a more extraordinary woman who trumps Jones' power and personality by miles? "So what do you say? Are you going to come with me, live with me, distract me and be my next best thing for the time that I need you? Assured, you will make it out of this alive, but how scarred –mentally and physically - I cannot tell. Either way, I'm sure it will be pleasant for both of us if you stay as interesting and pleasing as you have been. You know it will make little difference whether you agree of not."

I think, and not long and hard, but short and fast. I'm going to live? I can have my cake... and eat it... I can request travels, and trips, and wear everything I want to wear –provided it's purple – eat the best, sleep on the best... Sleep with the best? I'm going to have that option? I mean, as long as I stay as I was – don't become too mundane of too domesticated. Provided, he will still leave me at any given moment for her, but it doesn't matter. That never has done. Oh what can I say?

"Fuck yes." And when he extends a hand to aid me in getting onto the ferry, I take it and climb aboard. So much for sanity.


	15. A Mile High

**Okay, sooo... I'm sorry? I really have neglected this story. Though shady is back, readers, and re-watching the series. More content will come, be assured!**

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When the unreality of the situation wears off, we're in a semi-stolen, semi-given private jet to Greece. Greece, of all the places in Europe we could go, but what the hell. Shockingly, we haven't fucked yet, but that's alright. The boat trip didn't last long – maybe a day or two before we were pulling up to the next dock and en route to the closest airfield.

We're midway to Athens, spearing olives with cocktail sticks from the mini-bar, splayed out on a cushioned double-lounge bed in a private room, when I begin to feel at home, more myself. Less dazed and disoriented, so to speak. I look out a stunted jet window to see daylight outside, and breathing comes a little easier, never mind the altitude. I'm cooped up in here with enough alcohol to drown a good quantity of fish if we happen to fall to the ocean, and a man that still looks at me like he wants to ravish me. Though he has been patient, and so now my head feels securely attached, I will reward that favour.

He watches me stretch – arch my back, use the momentum to eerily sit up. I'm in another short, purple cocktail dress, and I must look ravishing. My hair is airy enough so that when it gets tangled and bedraggled, I look half a mess, and half a woodland sprite. My make-up has left faint shadows under my eyes, but I'm not fussed and neither is he. I crawl over to him, as he leans back against the headboard like a reclusive billionaire – as if he has exclusive customer's rights to everything in this room, including me.

I kiss him lazily, in knowing I taste like salt from the olives and sweat, fruit from lime and tequila. "Mmm." A short, comfortable moan when I break off. "I don't suppose you have a shower on this niche contraption you borrowed?"

He quirks an eyebrow at me, yet the gesture does not induce spite. "You and me? Are going to bleed the world dry getting what we want." He brushes a lock of hair out of my face, a lopsided smile on his face. "Such a little diva. Using me to fulfil your most hedonistic desires."

I shrug, and then proceed to make love to his neck with my mouth. "Don't say things like that. I don't fuck you out of a desire to utilise your abilities for materialistic things." The "Mostly," I follow it with is pressed into the bristled skin of his jaw. I mouth it lazily up to his mouth again. "Though, if you did want to be my sugar daddy, I'm sure we could arrange something."

He cringes, so sudden I can see it. "Don't ever call me Daddy." He straightens up a bit there, and oh right, I hit a nerve. "That will be one of the commands I tattoo on your breasts to remind me to repeat it every morning." And, oh my, was that a threat or a promise?

I sigh and get off him, going to the minibar for something sweet again. A strawberry daiquiri. I pour the pre-made cocktail into a highball and get back on the bed, taking a short sip. I need to text Jones. Man, she'd be so happy with me for this. Well, not so much for the pillaging and raping across cultured, historical landmarks but for getting him out of her hair for a while. Hell, when all is said and done, and I'm bled-out, sorely used and sapped of life she may even give me a pity fuck in the literal hospital bed. What is even wrong with me? I've gotten what I've wanted, but all I can think about is my former partner. If you could call us that. Damn.

"What are you thinking about, my sweet?" He trails a hand through my hair, stroking it behind my ear. It's a shame I can't lie, because now he's going to be pissed at me. I can just tell from the way we both were supposed to leave shit behind, barely a few days in and I'm already getting cold feet. Whatever.

"Jones." I reply. Yeah, I'll admit it, my avoidance tactic isn't a superpower but it certainly helps me avoid elaboration until prompted. He stiffens slightly, manoeuvring me so my back is against his rumpled shirt-covered chest.

"Hmm. And what about her?" He sighed, stroking up my stomach and my breasts with a languid gesture.

"Just that she'd be both proud and disappointed with me." He sighs and pulls me into him, hugging me from behind while I sip the cocktail dreamily. He takes it from me after, our fingers overlapping and puts it down in the nightstand cup holder.

"Take off your dress." He whispers in my ear. I unwrap his arms and stand up to indulge him, my legs once strong, but now coltish under his scrutiny. I unzip it from the back, shaking hands managing it more efficiently than I thought they could and step out of it, the satin loose and falling down my legs. "And the bra." My hands aren't as efficient, however, at unclipping it from behind, but I get there without excessive struggle. I let it fall down my arms and pile with the purple satin at my feet. "Have you ever fucked in a plane before, Hart?"

I shake my head, "No."

"Good. Because I'm about to show you how."


	16. Talent Scout

Not exactly a model chapter of a great fanfiction that has a plot, but one that strayed off course to become something weirder. Stay with it, I promise this chapter isn't as pointless as it looks

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In Athens, I meet a boy. He's native to Greece, but speaks the English tongue profoundly, albeit with a heavy accent. His name is Alejandro, as I find out. Twenty three, still living at home. His father is American, his mother Greek. He has a strong interest in the historical culture of his homeland, which is quite possibly why I met him photographing the temple. I laughed and smiled at this, which begged the question, "Why? Why would a regular want to take pictures of something they know as familiar?"

The boy only turned and smiled at me, folding the legs on his camera tripod. "I come here every day to see the columns in a different light, hoping to find something new."

It was then on that I was fascinated by him. I spent the day with him, and the more I knew about his heritage and his lifestyle the more I wanted to know. He took me for drinks in an olive garden on the outskirts. We talked for hours.

How did I get away with this, you ask? On some kind of honeymoon with a psychopath? I don't know. I have no clue. I said I wanted a day to myself for a while to sightsee alone, and he obliged. Kilgrave, also, wanted time to acquire new materialistic things we can amuse ourselves with. A surprise, if I were naive enough to assume he were charitable. I desperately wanted to take Alejandro home to him, to see how they would bond over their interest in finery and their mutual love of experiences and beauty.

Though I knew the differences between them were too harsh and conflicting for either of them to be anything other than displeased with one another. Where Alejandro was polite, appreciative, contented and relaxed, Kevin was materialistic, always seeking a satisfaction he may never find, and could appear obnoxious. It would feel like taking home a small mammal for Kilgrave to amuse himself with. The sun was beginning to set over the mountainous zones in the horizon now, light fading orange. It was almost sundown, the time I had to be back at our rented house. I was not used to having a self-imposed curfew.

Ironically, it is now when Alejandro and I begin our talk about mutants.

"My mother thinks they're curses and blessings from their God, or Gods as it may be." He chuckles sweetly. "My father, as stoic American scientist as you all are, my apologies Jane-"

"No offense taken."

"-believes they are merely mutations of the human DNA." He cocks his head to one side lips curled into an inquisitive arc on his freckle-dappled face, wavy dirt-blonde hair shifting with the movement. "What do you say?"

I laugh a little out of shock. "You want to hear my opinion?!" Alejandro nodded vigorously, excitement shining. I relented, one hand in surrender as I sipped my beer. The speciality here is clean and crisp, quite possibly one of the cleanest brews I've ever tasted. I lay it down on the tabletop, sun glinting off the condensation on the glass. "I believe the people that possess them have them for a reason. I don't know; don't want to know how they got them in the first place. But that they have them for a reason."

It is in that moment that Alejandro looks up into my eyes and smiles broadly, clearly. "Thank you for that, Jane. Now I know that you have to be back with your partner before sundown, so I will hail you a cab shortly. But first, I must show you something." He stands abruptly, what was once appreciation in his eyes a burning ferocity.

I wonder what he will show me. I ache to hear about it. I yearn. "Watch the glass." Alejandro murmurs quietly, so I do. He lays a flat palm over the pint of Mythos on the table, and the last thought going through my mind is one of awe as the amber liquid floods to the top of the glass towards his hand. I sit, in front of his outstretched arm as the rest of the pint drains upward.

 _But to where?_ my astonished mind queries, before I look a little closer and realise that the beer is actually draining _into him_. When the pint is finished, he removes his hands and looks down at me in worry. I look up at him again, and godammit Jane, why am I the mutation-magnet?! Why do I end up bumping into and having the most unlikely of friendships with all the amazing freaks?!

"So, uh... As well as draining pints like a boss, is there anything else you can do?"

He laughs and shakes his head, relieved to find I'm not shocked or repelled. He once again takes his seat and absentmindedly licks his lips. "There are lots. It is only a shame that I cannot get drunk." I smile at him lopsidedly, watching his olive-skinned hands as he clamps them around the sides of his own glass.

"You cannot get drunk?"

He sighs a little. "Alcohol has... No effect on me." And once again I find myself enjoying the sensual tones of his accent. "But I can do this." He reaches a hand across the table, searching for mine and I let him clasp it gently, fingertips barely brushing mine. I watch him the whole time, as his eyes close and his finger flexes in concentration.

And then I am gone.

My eyes slip closed in what feels like the most sublime of feelings. Even the light behind my eyelids blurs and fades into ecstasy and I feel nothing, and everything. His fingers on mine make me moan, heat is pooling between my legs and my head spins. Thinking becomes irrational and all I can do is sit there as my eyelids flutter, behind them my eyes roll back. An unnameable beat throbs inside my head, a blur inside my own mind.

And then Alejandro draws his fingertips away.

I gasp at the loss, scrabbling at the table for purchase. I whine and twist at the loss, and if I were in my right mind I would be eternally grateful for Alejandro swiping both our empty glasses of the table. The haze fades, and in a matter of moments, I feel entirely embarrassed. How much of myself did I just expose in front of this man? My panties are soaked, my mind is hazy like waking up still drunk in the morning, and the sunlight stings my eyes when they re-open.

"Wha-what was that?" I grit out, and lift my shamefaced head to meet his cerulean eyes, which are both sympathetic and impressed at once.

"That is my ability." He says, and lays both empty glasses down on the table.

"How did you...?" I just about stammer, mind easing up on me now so I can just about comprehend what he's saying.

"My mother, when we first found out about it, called it the curse of Dionysus. When I come into contact with alcohol, or..." He grimaces slightly. "...Intimate bodily fluids, I have the ability to deliver the feelings of madness, ecstasy, drink intoxication and powerful arousal to the next person I touch."

I gape, open-mouthed at him. Just how many extraordinary powers does this world harbour?! I stand abruptly, a little in disbelief and shock at him, as he opens his arms, a look on his face of fear and worry. "Please don't be scared of me."

My face softens just the littlest and I relax from my tensed, ready-to-spring form. I see a younger Kevin in his eyes that needs to be taught love. I see someone who could potentially turn sour from rejection. I shrug a little, clear my features. "That is completely amazing."

And he softens into the man I met, no longer afraid of fearful or worried. "Thank you, Jane." Alejandro turns to stand and pulls his camera bag over his shoulder. "Do you want me to get you a ride home now?"

I click my tongue, deep in thought while shrugging my bag over my shoulders. I shan't tell anyone what I thought, but it was session of deep contemplation in that minute that lead me to a final decision. I was a talent scout, and my fresh blood had just been spotted.

"My husband has a power too. Would you come home with me to meet him?"


	17. Stolen

As expected, Kilgrave has mixed emotions about Alejandro. He takes a shine to him immediately, yet orders him around like someone he feels nothing for revulsion for. It is to be expected, really. I never knew what he was like with Jones the first time they met, but would expect more appreciation and subtlety in the way he spoke to her than the way he speaks to our guest now. Jones is female, after all. Now, it is not only the threat of someone with potentially greater powers than Kevin, but the dominance of men over one another that would put him on edge.

Upon arriving at the house, he pulled me into his arms and kissed me ravenously like a starved man. I, too, was starved of touch and sensations having been out in the Mediterranean heat all day, Alejandro's demonstration earlier was nothing but a tease, and it wore me down drastically. He was polite to our guest at first, yet as we all sat on the veranda, appreciating the night over a glass of fine wine, the hints began to drop.

"So how did you happen to meet my wife, Alejandro?" Kilgrave piped up, shifting his body slightly to face him. The syllables of the younger man's name rolled off his tongue like something exotic and deep. Alejandro made a companionable gesture and sipped his wine.

"It's a rather amusing story really. Jane wanted to know why I was photographing the temple, the same as her. We talked about history and spent the day teaching her about our culture. Like a... what would you Americans call it? A tour guide!" He exclaimed, laughing a little along with my 'husband'. Really, the identification and the false marriage was not necessary but it added something extra to our travels, and it was something that both him and Jones used to do while they together. Hah. Together.

"Yes, that is all very good and well, but did you have any ulterior movies upon meeting my wife?" I could see the charm and the normality of Kevin's outer demeanour slip into something I hadn't seen in a while – a viciousness.

"Thomas, surel-" I began, using the name on the passport of his that I had been instructed just this morning to use while in public or with company. It was quite simple, really. I kept the same one, he changed his for different occasions. I never knew his reasons for this.

"No, no, it's quite alright, Jane." Alejandro spoke, the wine glass firm in his hand. He turns from me to Kilgrave. "No, not at first. She is a pretty lady. Men always want to speak to pretty ladies." The compliment puts a smile on my face, but the fact that Kilgrave looks both intrigued and irritated right now wipes it off and leaves me on edge.

"Yes, she most definitely is." He lifts my hands from my knee playfully to kiss the back of it chastely. "But after? What were your motivations then?" I take his continuation as a hint to shut up and focus on sipping my wine, keeping the appearance of a domesticated yet adventurous wife, in love but not love that consumes someone within it.

"I wanted her to know more of me. I wanted her to know of the curse from my Gods."

Kilgrave visibly leaned forward, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. I took the opportunity to slip one knee over the other, so the thin material of my cream summer dress rubbed against my skin. The small heel on my boot leant into my 'husband' a little, and I was barely surprised when he tugged my foot into his lap and stroked a soothing hand up my knee. "Curse from the Gods? Tell me about this."

Alejandro blinks once, twice before beginning. "When I come into contact with alcohol, semen or a woman's juices, I absorb it into myself. I then have the opportunity to send the next person I touch into... a state of madness, bliss, alcohol intoxication and pleasured arousal. The state continues... for as long as I am in contact with that person for."

Kilgrave stares at the boy before him with bated breath and startled eyes for a few minutes, just as amused and fascinated by the explanation as I was before. He takes a deep breath and furrows his brow again. "Well being as we've been drinking... Is it possible you could do it now?"

"Yes."

"Did you do it to my wife earlier this evening?"

"Yes."

"Show me."

I watch in mild amusement as Kilgrave outstretches a hand across the table, tentatively. I just about have the recollection of how frantic you become after the effects to move the wineglasses of the table for their safety. Alejandro reaches out a hand to touch him as well, but in the last moment before the damning touch, Kilgrave flinches back."Jane?"

"Yes, my love?"

"Don't move until this is over." And it's entirely damning and entirely upsetting that he still has such little trust of me to have to order me to stay like a bitch being trained. I just want to wrap my arms around his neck and my thighs around his waist, shake him and scream, _I'm already your trained bitch, you lunatic! You don't have to be paranoid around me!_ Slightly uncomfortable in this position but still motivated, I watch the show.

He takes Alejandro's wrist in his grip, and I eye him expectantly. The moment the boy channels his powers into him is easily detected when Kilgrave's eyes flutter shut and a sigh escapes his mouth. Seconds pass, each and every one of them Kevin becomes more lively. He pops wood, writhes and moans like someone of his age and stature shouldn't. I look at Alejandro, and see his concentration fading, eyelids twitching, blush high on his cheekbones. The moment he pulls away his hand like a reflex to fire barely seconds after, Kilgrave scrambled desperately at the table, practically growling his need for more.

When he comes back to himself, still shivering from something unknown to me, and opens his eyes, the fire in them is not yet gone. He blinks again and groans in loss, however shakes it off and re-opens his eyes to fix a vivid stare at Alejandro. His irises are dancing with mischief.

"I'm not quite sure why you call that a curse of the God's, my boy. For one, I would be appreciative of this gift, and secondly... That felt salaciously unholy!" Kilgrave claps his hands in excitement, and then moves his left one back to his knee again.

"My mother is a Hellenic Polytheist. She believes it is the curse of Dionysus, the old God of wine, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and even fertility. She believes I was given this power from him."

Kilgrave quirked his head slightly, and smile on his lips far from comforting. A smile of greed and want. "That is mummy's belief, my son. What is yours?"

Alejandro visibly gulps. "I got these when I became a man, at the age of eighteen. I believe it is the all-mother punishing me for living such a debauched childhood."

Kilgrave grins at him broadly. "I can tell you and I are going to get along like fire hoses, my dear." His grip tightens on my knee. "Now head on inside, my pet, and get comfortable. Keep the doors open though, and watch me while I fuck my wife."

I try to keep the smile out of my eyes, as Alejandro quietly takes his empty glass of wine and enters the house through the glass sliding doors.

"I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot of him." Kilgrave takes that moment to nuzzle into my neck, and I submit blindly, my head tilting to the other side. His hand slides up my knee, my thigh, until-

"Ah-!"

"He can stay with us for a while."His teeth dig into my neck lightly, his voice a growl. "It's not super strength, but it will do." The hand – insistent and moving under my dress, skittering over the lace.

"You're an animal- Oh, God..."


	18. Domestic

**I'm not giving up on this, I'm really not. Updates are slow, just hoping it's worth the wait :)**

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The night is long and lazy. I'm thoroughly wound tight through it all, and if the feeling flooding through me isn't restlessness or some other kind of mania, it's definitely irritation. True, the night is long, lazy and relaxed, but I am no longer in the mood for any of these things. It's too contemporary, too domesticated. For lack of a better word, I am bored. I want to do shit. I want to go to a club, or at least a bar. Alone. I want some pussy. I want to pick a bitch up and not have to play sharesies because my dear husband would want to fuck her before I went down on her. Tch. Control freak.

I want Alejandro to touch me so I'm not so bored. It would be kinda fun. If not dangerous. Could you go mental from exposure to it, I wonder? I don't know, don't want to. Or maybe I do?

Even sex isn't calming me down. After being fucked on the veranda, a hand laced in the back of my hair as he pounded into my pussy from behind, it seems I'm even more restless. I actually thought of Alejandro. Which is kinda weird. Or maybe that's because I was facing him, bent over on the decking, my head pulled up so when my eyes were open, they stared into his. The luxury is even boring me now.

I'm led on the couch, too plush and white to be anything you can dream of spilling shiraz on, and it's comfort is even making my skin crawl. Kilgrave is in the shower – I am not with him, because it's quite possibly the only thing in this house that cannot be made comfortable for two people.

I'm even making it comfortable for two people. It's just such a shame that my darling new Greek boyfriend is brainwashed to a pulp. Such a shame. I snap my fingers at him drily, and laugh shrilly when his staring-into-space head shakes and his eyes refocus.

"Yes, Jane?" He looks confused and befuddled, but nothing much beyond that. There's blankness in his eyes I have seen in too many people with to be ignorant of.

"Lighten the fuck up!" I chuckle, and drop to my hands and knees, crawling over to him. He stares at me still, confused and with a certain unfamiliarity. Fine. Drastic times, drastic measures.

"I am relaxed." He says, and what the fuck, he sounds like a broken record. I fake frustrated cry into his knees and fold my arms across them like a weeping damsel on the lap of some haughty knight in an old canvas painting. Husband, I like you very much but the 'controlling people until they become repulsively boring' has to stop.

"Yeah, and when I relax, or get comfortable, or unwind, I usually end up led on the first comfy thing I find with a hand in my pants and Netflix on, not sat in a chair looking all..." I wave my hand in the air, staring up at him with exasperation, struggling for a word. "All emotionally constipated?!"

Alejandro gets the remote from the coffee table beside him and turns on the TV, slouches in his seat and unbuttons his jeans enough to rest a hand where its warm. The blankness is still in his eyes. "Is this how I should relax?"He asks me, unsure and inquisitive like a child learning etiquette. Fucking hell.

I yell a frustrated and angry cry of grievance and get off his lap, hurling myself off to the corner of the room and up the stairs of the rented holiday home. I fucking hate people. Why is no one as clever and majestic as I? Just a sign that he isn't following me or calling after me proves he's as useful as a fucking vegetable. One that no one likes. Sprouts or some shit. If I wasn't irritated before, I certainly am now.

I march up the stairs as loudly as I can. And then stop at the second from the top. I should have more booze, damnit. I curse myself once, twice, for this small failure and carry on moving until I reach the bathroom, shower still running and audible from outside. The door isn't locked, so I slingshot myself in and begin stripping viciously, fabric tearing as my angst gets in the way of ripping the sundress over my head.

"Hart, is everything alright?" I hear his call from inside, and see his blurred-out nakedness from the blurred glass shower sliding doors. I unhook my bra as hastily as possible and quite literally tear off my underwear, strength in my annoyance and adrenaline.

"No!" I hiss, wrenching open the shower door and standing under the spraying faucet with him. It is not alright! It isn't quite a brutal shove out of the way with an arm, or a shoulder barge, but it's something just a little less intrusive. The spray from the faucet is large enough to cover both of us, and I find its warmth soothing, if only for a brief moment. "Alejandro is boring me..." I whine in my prettiest Daddy's Little Girl voice, head pressed to his back, arms wrapping around his middle.

"Hn." He contemplates aloud, an obtuse arm gripping my hip from behind. "Shall I tell him to stop?"

"No!" I plea frantically, acting up because I know he likes it. I wave my arms in exasperation, untrained and unrestricted. "That's the problem!" I bite his shoulder lightly, muffling my distress into it. He bats me off with an arm and turns to face me, hair lank and wet from the water, streaming down his face and trailing his bare chest.

"Funny. You seem to be fine enough." His eyes narrow at me in suspicion, and I put my arms on over his shoulders, the naked closeness not as intimate as it used to be. He knows exactly what is happening, and how it always does with the others, but for some reason not me. Of course he's going to be having strange thoughts. His eyes turn away from their lock with mine, suddenly disinterested. "Well, it isn't my fault and it most certainly doesn't seem to be yours."

"Whatever. He's lost all sense of himself!" I say, and it can't be called a shout because it isn't loud or passionate enough, but I seem to have lost the play-whine. When did that happen? "He's boring now. How did you ever even find interest in people with that attitude?" I throw at him, and maybe it's the way that my hands are clenching in his nape involuntarily, or my tone of voice, but he pushes me off him with more force than necessary.

"Don't touch me." And it isn't exactly a snarl, but it's full of enough fear, like a caged animal, to be of that ilk. And then it hits me. Kilgrave has never allowed himself to be or feel threatened by another human being apart from Jones. And even then, it was a game. A back-up plan was in place. If he hasn't killed me yet? I may just live forever. I hit the back of the shower, body cold when away from the hot water. My nipples spike, and I'd be lying if I said it was just from the cold.

"I am not an experiment," My breaths rasp out, the chill and the adrenaline quickening my pulse. "I was not born to be your counterpart." My hand steadies myself against the wall, standing to meet his shocked eyes and still features. The defiance in me rises in a way that it never has done before, not since my teenage years. I am scared, but whole. If I said the time away from him hadn't made me more detached, I would be lying. His knees stay firm, locked, his whole body tensed, as I see no reaction out of him from my words. There's a silence, except for the running shower and my loud breaths.

"Then how else do you explain it?" He says, eyes lined with something cold. He steps back under the shower, sluicing off but keeping his focus towards me as if I'm about to do something grave and terrible. I hiss in disapproval quickly, because how the fuck am I supposed to answer that, and try and keep my head clear. My life may depend on my next answer. Okay, fuck this.

I turn to open the shower door, wrenching it open and taking a step towards my ill-timed exit, when his voice stops me, quite literally, in my path.

"Close the door, and get back in here." So I close the door and resume my position, without any alternative to turn to. I huff and lock eyes with him, again, and slouch against the shower wall.

"And, what exactly, am I supposed to do now?" I cross my arms over my chest, still completely unashamed of my nudity. It does not make me feel more vulnerable in this state, rather empowers me. There was a certain time in the world when a women's nudity was the only power she had over man. Not that I enjoy such matters of inequality, but at times like this, a naked women feels that she may only lift her foot to place on a kneeling man's shoulder, and distract him with her bared sex, before making a killing blow.

"Are you mutated? Like me, or Jones, or any of the other freaks in costumes running around?" And he looks me still dead in the eyes while saying this, like the power comes from the windows of the soul instead of the voice.

"None of the above!" I hiss, stroking the back of my neck in irritation. God, when will he see? I'm irrelevant! I'm no rich metal, I'm no needle in a haystack! I look down to my feet, as if the self-depreciation had actually hurt me for a minute. His eyes narrow once more, then roll with his head back to the shower. He steps under it, back facing me once again, huffing his annoyance.

"If you are, you just don't know it."

I retract myself from the wall and stand back under the side of the spray again, unable to move closer to him. Damn this stupid power. Damn his suspicions and damn mutants all to hell. "Can I touch you again? I want to shower, and right now I feel like one of us should be making crooning noises and stroking the side of someone's arm in a parody of comfort." This seems to get a rolling, velvet laugh out of him, turning back to me. The fight in his eyes is gone, leaving only something drained. Kilgrave cannot be used to the unknown, cannot determine how to react to it.

"Yes, yes, I suppose you can."

I shuffle closer, and we resume our former position, but this time it has some level of understanding to it. My fingers play in the sparseness of his treasure trail, something I perceive to be perfectly innocent, as his trail patterns on my hip. "Can I educate Alejandro with my philosophy?" I say, muffled into his back. He knows exactly what I mean, but his body doesn't tense for another fight like I supposed it would.

"I'll think about it."


End file.
